5th RUNNER-UP:
Goes to a San Anselmo, California man who died when he hit a lift tower at
the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad.
22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Central Mammoth Hospital.
The accident occurred about 3 a.m., the Mono County Sheriff's department
said.
Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley
and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift towers, said Lt. Mike
Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are used to
protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the pads to
slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower.
It has since been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one
with its pad removed.

4th RUNNER-UP:
Goes to Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis
market. When the clerk threatened to call the police, Puelo grabbed a hot
dog, shoved it into his mouth and walked out without paying. Police found
him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics removed the six-inch
wiener from his throat where it had choked him to death.

3rd RUNNER-UP:
Goes to poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing above him
on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell on him.

2nd RUNNER-UP:
"Man loses face at party."
A man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the winner last year, a
man in Arkansas who used a 22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup
truck) popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an
explosion that blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue.
Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the
party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an
aquarium hooked to a battery and was trying to explode it. It wouldn't go
off and this guy said "I'll show you how to set it off." He put it into his
mouth, bit down and it blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue off,
Payne said.
Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial
injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical Division.
"I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.

1st RUNNER-UP:
Doctors at Portland University Hospital said an Oregon man shot through the
skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive and will be released soon from
the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an
initiation into a men's rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous (probably known
now as Stupid Mountain Men Anonymous) in Grants Pass, Oregon. A friend tried
to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Robert's right eye.
Doctors said that had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood
vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly.
Neurosurgeon, Doctor Johnny Delashaw, at the University Hospital in Portland
said the arrow went through 8 to 10 inches of brain with the tip protruding
at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood
vessels. Delashaw also said that had Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on
his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards
that he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I
feel so dumb about this."
No charges have been filed, but the Josephine County district attorney's
office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.

Now, THIS YEAR'S WINNER:
(The late) John Pernicky and his friend, (the late) Sal Hawkins, of the
great state of Washington, decided to attend a local Metallica concert at
the George Washington amphitheater. Having no tickets (but having had 18
beers between them), they thought it would be easy to "hop" over the nine
foot fence and sneak into the show. They pulled their pickup truck over to
the fence and the plan was for Mr. Pernicky, who was 100 pounds heavier than
Mr. Hawkins, to hop the fence and then assist his friend over.
Unfortunately for (the late) Mr. Pernicky, there was a 30-foot drop on the
other side of the fence. Having heaved himself over, he found himself
crashing through a tree. His fall was abruptly halted (and broken, along
with his arm) by a large branch that snagged him by his shorts. Dangling
from the tree with a broken arm, he looked down and saw some bushes below
him. Possibly figuring the bushes would break his fall, he removed his
pocket knife and proceeded to cut away his shorts to free himself from the
tree. Finally free, Mr. Pernicky crashed into holly bushes. The sharp leaves
scratched his ENTIRE body and now, without the protection of his shorts, a
holly branch penetrated his rectum. To make matters worse, upon landing his
pocket knife penetrated his thigh.
Hawkins, seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, threw him a rope
and tried to pull him to safety by tying the rope to the pickup truck and
slowly driving away. However, in his drunken haste, he put the truck into
reverse and crashed through the fence landing on his friend and killing him.
Police arrived to find the crashed pickup with its driver thrown 100 feet
from the truck and dead at the scene from massive internal injuries. Upon
moving the truck, they found John under it half-naked, scratches on his
body, a holly stick in his rectum, a knife in his thigh, and his shorts
dangling from a tree branch 25 feet in the air.
~~~~~~~~~~
Congratulations, gentlemen. You win. And thankfully, more idiots have been
removed from the gene pool.

Wow...that's funny! I now have a large root beer-flavored mark on the wall to clean up after reading that last one! This is what happens when we try to stop natural selection... :-) :-) :-)

Chris

WOW...the things people do.... :-)

LOL. Some people just dont think.

Ola Davy

Simply brilliant Always love it when the new Darwin awards are brought out.
One thing to mention though. 1st and second runner up are not really contestants for the Darwin Awards as they both lived to tell the tale. I believe the instructions of the Darwin award clearly state that the only way of receiving the Darwin award is if you have died of your own utter stupidity. Otherwise you get an honourable mention but not more then that. So you probably have caught this from the Darwin awards site. In that case they have made a mistake on their own rules.

Still happy the guys at the Metallica Concert erased their participation in the Gene pool

Here's the link to this year's award winners:

http://www.darwinawards.com/ :-)

Apart from stag-boy, it would seem the US have a monopoly on this behaviour... Time for the rest of the world to catch up? :-) :-)

Hmmmm. Guess it depends on which "Darwin Awards" list you go by. Here is a link to the "official" Darwin Awards 2005 page. http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/index_darwin2005.html

It seems to have pretty good international representation.