Pipeline Steal 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Two fellows decided to steal some oil from a pipeline, probably to fuel their tractors, or just to sell it at a low price. They digged an open mine to reach a pipeline buried under the ground. Then they drilled a three-centimeter wide hole in the pipe.
They had not considered several aspects:
- the pipeline transported unprocessed, crude oil. To make any use of it, they would need a petrochemical plant
- the oil was transported under high pressure, about three atmospheres. So the oil spouted 30 meters high.
This scared them so much, that not only they left their equipment in the opencast, but while escaping they left their shoes there.
They also had not considered the fact that crude oil is extremely flammable. But, as we say in Polish, they had more luck than brain: there was no ignition source and they escaped successfully. So they lost their chance to win the Darwin Award.
Unfortunately, they also contaminated several hundred square meters of the ground, and stopped oil transport for hours.
Unfortunately I do not know when the story happened, as I did not know about the Darwin Award then, and I did not take care when I read about it. But this is a true story, and it can be found in the Polish press from that time. It happened one or two years ago in Poland.
And I would like to nominate the story to the Honorable Mention.
(I am not a native speaker, and I realize that some phrases may sound clumsy. Please feel free to make your own corrections, and to translate the measure units if you wish) Submitted on 12/12/2002
Submitted by:
Tomasz Dryjanski
Reference:
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
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