2004 Darwin Awards

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

Amateur Bomb Inspector 2004 Darwin Award Nominee Confirmed True by Darwin "Curiosity may have killed this cat, but no amount of satisfaction can bring him back." (25 May 2004, Indonesia) The city of Ambon was on edge. Just two days before, a bomb hidden in a cookie tin, disguised with two bottles of beer and some peanuts, had exploded and wounded five people. So police took extra precautions when a worried man alerted them to a suspicious black plastic bag that had been hung on the handle of his motorbike, while it was parked outside an open market. The police cleared the area, moved the bag to the middle of the street, and waited for the bomb squad to arrive. Alarmingly, this bag also contained a cookie tin. The police set up a safety cordon 20 meters away from the bag, and warned people to stay back. But after 25 minutes spent waiting for the bomb squad, curiosity got the best of Willem, a 45-year-old fish vendor, and a number of other onlookers. They wanted to get a closer look, see what else was in the bag. What could happen? What indeed. As they approached the bomb, it exploded, killing Willem and injuring 16 others... Reader Comments: "Na, hiern zeigt sich's mal wieder - Neugierde ist ungesund!" "What I don't understand is: why the detail about the two bottles of beer and the peanuts?" Share DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2012 Submitted by: AZN Mullet Reference: The Australian, Jakarta Post, Catholic World News, Taipei Times, Asia News, Christian Today

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