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2013 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Lighter Up

2013 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

An older story, but no less hilarious for it; in 1986, Joseph Macellaro of New York was prosecuted for reckless endangerment and violation of environmental laws. Why?

Macellaro had in his possession two 35-gallon drums of hazardous chemicals, one of which was leaking. Presumably unwilling to pay to dispose of them safely, he decided to dump them on the side of the highway instead. One might think this displays a certain lack of concern for public safety, but he wasn't done yet; Macellaro decided that should the drums be found, it would be better for him if they did not have warning labels attached.

What's the best way to remove a warning label from a leaking drum of hazardous chemicals? Why, with a lighter, of course. Unsurprisingly, when our rather incompetent flytipper tried to burn the label off with his lighter, the chemicals caught fire.

Although the court decisions - which went all the way to the Supreme Court, due to the environmental regulations in question not having been properly enacted - do not mention Mr Macellaro's state of health, he was very lucky to survive at all; the drum could easily have exploded, the fire could have released toxic gases, or the leaked chemicals could have seriously burnt him. Let's hope the years of court appearances had an appropriately reformative effect on him.

Submitted on 06/20/2013

Submitted by: Emma
Reference: New York court case 131 A.D.2d 699, published at http://www.leagle.com/decision-result/?xmldoc/19878

Copyright © 2013 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Thanks, Emma, but we don't speculate in "what if's", so if he wasn't actually injured then there's no risk of self-selection as far as we're concerned. If we were to speculate then we'd also have to consider that innocent passers-by, firefighters, etc. may have also been injured by the fire or the chemicals, which would be grounds for an automatic toss. On top of that, we have lots of stories in the archives of idiots who did manage to trigger fires/explosions by using open flames around fuel tanks, chemical drums, etc. so this would border on being too common as well. Thanks just the same.


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
What Bruce said.


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