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Darwin Awards
2005 Slush Pile

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

Tree Catapult

2005 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

After the recent storms and floodings we had in Switzerland, a colleague of mine set out to clear his garden from the damages caused by the recent storms. One of the trees in his garden had been nearly uprooted and was leaning against another tree, bending down some of the other tree's branches. He climbed on the second tree with a saw in order to cut some branches of the leaning tree so that he could later pull it down without braking too many branches of the second tree.

Hence he began to saw one big branch which had pinned down an even bigger branch of the second tree bending it downwards. Since everyone knows that one should never sit on the branch that is being sawed, he correctly sat on the pinned branch of the other tree. However, he underestimated the elasticity that even wood can possess.

Thus when the pinning branch had been almost completely sawed through, he heard a cracking sound and suddenly was propelled into air by the now unpinned branch which acted as a catapult. According to his friend who eyewitnessed the incident, he flew into air 2-3 meters (6-9 ft)high and then fell like a brick on the lawn from a top height of 5-6 meters (15-18 ft).

He will be away from work for several months, as he has to heal from a fractured cheekbone, a broken leg and torn knee ligaments. This means that his feat will not be considered for an Award but such a peculiar incident should be able to make it into the Personal Accounts section.

There are several persons who can confirm this story as absolutely true. At first I thought it was a made-up joke about him but his absence was confirmed to me by his own superior who also confirmed the story

Submitted on 09/21/2005

Submitted by: Swissnik
Reference: Personal account, 21/09/2005

Copyright © 2005 DarwinAwards.com

Great? 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Awful?
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>> Moderator Scores <<

Greg said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Not a bad yarn and an interesting reversal of the more obvious tree limb-cutting stories. Thanks.

Kelly said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Yes, this one was amusing. I always appreciate hearing of incidents which usually only happen in animated cartoons, and this is one of them!

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