Since 1994, the Darwin Awards have offered a sick annual hall of fame for those who died in exceptionally stupid ways. Here are some of the weirdest 'winners'
An Italian named Fabio had quit his job as an ostrich farmer to drive trucks, and in his spare time built his own spy gadgets.
In a pub with friends, he produced his latest invention: a single-shot pistol cleverly concealed as a pen. To prove it was worked, he pointed it at his head and clicked the button. It did.
Adelir Antonio de Carli was a Catholic priest in Brazil – an outspoken critic of human rights violations by the police, and an experienced sky diver. To raise money for charity, he readied his parachute, helmet, GPS, food, water and thermal suit and took to the sky in a chair attached to 1,000 helium balloons.
The only problem was that he had not learned how to use his GPS device. After rising to 6,000 metres, he made a telephone call in which he asked for help with the device. None was given. Nine days after lift-off, the Brazilian Navy abandoned its search.
Two months later part of the priest’s body was found by an on oil rig support crew 100km out to sea. The Darwin Awards declared this a ‘double Darwin’, since the celibacy of Catholic priests already removes them from the evolutionary stream.
James Burns, 34, of Michigan, USA, died while attempting to repair his truck from underneath while it was still in motion.
Local newspapers reported that Burns had asked his friend to drive the truck on a highway while he clung to its undercarriage in an ill-fated attempt to work out the source of a funny noise it kept making.
In Houston, Texas, a 19-year-old man named Rashaad died attempting to play Russian roulette with a semi-automatic pistol instead of a revolver.
This story has had an unpleasant afterlife as a racist meme – just tell the joke about whichever minority you hate, and laugh at their stupidity.
