I was always taught by my fraternity to believe in human service, and to always lend a hand, particularly to a group of attractive young women. Well, one saturday afternoon in May 2007, I was drinking a beer and enjoying the California sun on the front deck of my fraternity house when I heard the unmistakable "Thump thump, thump thump" of a flat tire. A Ford SUV pulled up to the curve and two pretty young women hopped out to inspect the damage.

I rather quickly hopped down off the deck and offered to lend a hand if they needed a jack or a spare set of hands, but I was quickly rebuffed as "just because they were women, didn't mean that they couldn't change a tire." They quickly became offended that I'd so obviously assumed they were helpless. So I sat back on the deck to watch the show.

The girls first got the tools and the spare out of the vehicle without too much difficulty, then began jacking up the car, without bothering to notice that since the car was up against the curb, there'd be no way to remove the wheel or install the new one. I attempted to step in, but was again brusquely turned away. They realized their error, and rolled the car forward to the ramp in the curb, but again, didn't take into account that there's an angle to the edge of the street for drainage, so that with the jack fully extended, it wasn't yet tall enough to allow installation of the fully inflated spare. Again, I offered to help them by suggesting that they use a 4x4 block of wood I had to offset the height. Nope... they wanted to do it themselves.

And here's where the Darwin potential comes in. They finally found a cinder block to set the jack on, and proceeded to jack up the car and remove the flat. Now, until this point, I hadn't bothered to notice where on the underbody they were positioning the jack - I made the mistake of assuming they knew a jack couldn't just go anywhere under the car. I was soon proven wrong. With the jack fully extended, and the flat removed, one of the girls began to put the spare on the studs. If you own an SUV, you know these aren't light, so the girl sat on the curb, legs extended underneath the SUV with the wheel hub directly in front of her. Only then did I see that they'd placed the jack in the only "flat" spot of the underbody - the floorboard of the passenger seat! Before I could yell to get her out of there, the jack tore straight through the floorboard, and dropping the front of the SUV directly on the girls legs, and the hub falling just shy of crushing her unmentionables. To my knowledge, she suffered only two broken femurs (impressive, given that they're the strongest bones in the human body). But she as close to an honorable mention as I believe a woman can.

Submitted on 06/30/2007

Submitted by: Jason Keats
Reference: Personal Account - Berkely, CA, May 2007

Copyright © 2007 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
As I was reading this story I was expecting to learn that they had put the jack under the gas tank. If they had managed to do that they very well could have ended up with a full DA. As it is, they certainly do deserve recognition for their feat. Thanks for the great writeup, Jason.

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Well, Jason, it's not like you didn't try! You certainly earned that last laugh, sir! An excellent PA which I am sure will be enjoyed by one and all!

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