# 2004 Darwin award winners!
**URL:** https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306
**Category:** PittSpeed Off Topic
**Created:** [December 26, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306 "2004-12-26T21:17:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@slowcamaro](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/slowcamaro)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/1 "2004-12-26T21:17:02Z")
This Year’s Nine Darwin Award Nominees are:
\>
\>Nominee No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News]:
\>An unidentified man, using a
\>shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend’s windshield,
\>accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a
\>hole in his gut.
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette]:
\>James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of
\>Alamo, MI, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police
\>describe as a “farm-type truck.” Burns got a friend to drive the truck
\>on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the
\>source of a troubling noise. Burns’ clothes caught on something,
\>however, and the other man found Burns “wrapped in the drive shaft!”
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record]:
\>Ken Charles Barger, 47,
\>accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC. Awakening
\>to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the
\>phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged
\>when he drew it to his ear. (For whatever reason, residents of Southern
\>states always seem to figure prominently among the Darwin nominees).
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 4: [UPI, Toronto]:
\>Police said a lawyer demonstrating the
\>safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a
\>pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police
\>spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto
\>Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the
\>strength of the building’s windows to visiting law students.He
\>previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength.
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 5: [Bloomberg News Service]:
\>A terrible diet and a room
\>with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was
\>killed by his own gas emissions. There was no mark on his body, and an
\>autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had
\>consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things)
\>It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died
\>in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over
\>his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn’t
\>have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his nearly-airtight bedroom.
\>According to the article, “He was a big man with a huge capacity for
\>creating this deadly gas.” Three of the rescuers got sick, and one was
\>hospitalized.
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 6: [The News of the Weird]:
\>Michael Anderson Godwin made
\>News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting
\>South Carolina’s electric chair on a murder conviction before having his
\>sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in
\>his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was
\>electrocuted.
\>(South Carolina entrants are always perennial favorites.)
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 7: [The Indianapolis Star]:
\>A cigarette lighter may have
\>triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a
\>cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle-loader, was killed
\>Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff’s
\>investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents’ rural
\>Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a
\>54-caliber muzzle-loader that had not been firing properly. He was using
\>the lighter to look into the barrel when the gun powder ignited!
\>
\>
\>Nominee No. 8: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]:
\>A man cleaning a bird
\>feeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto
\>suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55, was
\>standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred, said Inspector
\>D’Arcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. “It appears that the chair
\>moved, and he went over the balcony,” Honer said. (Another Ontario
\>entry… I wonder if people are moving there from the Maritime
\>Provinces.)
\>
\>
\>And the Winner Is !!!
\>
\>[Arkansas Democrat Gazette]:
\>Two local men were injured when their
\>pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State
\>Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported
\>the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des
\>Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc
\>after a frog-gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole’s pickup
\>truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight
\>fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was
\>not available, Wallis noticed that the 22 caliber bullet from his pistol
\>fit perfect into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon
\>inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly, and
\>the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge. After
\>traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river,
\>the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the
\>testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement, and
\>striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the
\>accident, but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his
\>testicles, which will never operate as intended. Wallis sustained a
\>broken clavicle and was treated and released.
\>
\>“Thank God we weren’t on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off,
\>or we might both be dead,” stated Wallis.
\>
\>“I’ve been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this
\>is a first for me. I can’t believe that those two would admit how this
\>accident happened,” said Snyder.
\>
\>Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole’s wife) asked how many
\>frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck???
\>
\>(Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure
\>as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued
\>that Poole DID, in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene pool.)
---
### Author:  [@BETRAYED93](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/BETRAYED93)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2004, 9:42pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/2 "2004-12-26T21:42:45Z")
lmao…
---
### Author:  [@vw16vcabby](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/vw16vcabby)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/3 "2004-12-26T22:21:22Z")
i thought myth busters proved the 22 in the fuse block shit is false.
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### Author:  [@bobby311](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/bobby311)
#### Post date: [December 26, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/4 "2004-12-26T22:22:29Z")
holy shit
---
### Author:  [@newchic](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/newchic)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/5 "2004-12-27T14:57:15Z")
Those are old and I think most were proven false… still funny though… hahaha
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### Author:  [@fshowcars](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/fshowcars)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/6 "2004-12-27T15:29:49Z")
there is a real darwin book of the year… just go to borders or something, actual newspaper articles and what have you
anything on the interweb is fake / chain letter BS
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### Author:  [@EcoThunder](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/EcoThunder)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/2004-darwin-award-winners/171306/7 "2004-12-27T21:12:42Z")
shot in the nuts = give up on life:sadwavey: