Unbelievable! Stupid!

This has been on my computer for about six years.

2006 Darwin Awards

In case you haven't received them yet, here are this
year's Darwin Awards -- the annual honor given to the
person who improved the "gene pool" the most by
killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid
way. As always, competition this year has been keen.
And the candidates this year are...

MICHIGAN... In Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck
and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head
first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve
his car keys.

CALIFORNIA... A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker,
who "totally zoned when he ran," -- accidentally
jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.

NORTH CAROLINA... Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach
when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand
caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel
Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from
the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the
bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying
him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the
outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to
claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA,
but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using
heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about
200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a
hospital.

CALIFORNIA... Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in
Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling
of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was
caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his
mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of
his skull as he hit the floor.

DELAWARE... Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in
Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said
he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets
into his mouth and pull the trigger.

HONORABLE MENTION:

NEW JERSEY... Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in
Andover Township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also
injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in
their car. While driving around 2 AM , the bored
couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the
window to see what would happen, but apparently failed
to notice the window was closed.

RUNNER UP:

WASHINGTON... TACOMA, WA Kerry Bingham had been
drinking with several friends when one of them said
they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the
Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The
conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men
trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM.
Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they
discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope.
Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and
pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby.
One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg
and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall
lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his
foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his
fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two
nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, "is
that God was watching out for me on that night.
There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's
foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER: FROM G-E-R-M-A-N-Y . is...

Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn,
Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses
of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries,
figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm
finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under
200 pounds of poop! Investigators say ill-fated
Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing
elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast
unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's
unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the
ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay
unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his
bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn
police detective Erik Dern. With no one there to help
him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour
before a watchman came along, and during that time he
suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak
accidents that proves that "S**T happens!"