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Darwin Awards
2008 Slush Pile

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Man Crushed repairing grave marker

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Man crushed repairing parents' grave marker Tom Spears, Canwest News Service Published: Wednesday, October 15, 2008

An elderly man was killed in a freak accident at St-Gregoire Cemetery in Buckingham, Que., north of Ottawa, when he was crushed by a concrete slab as he did some monument repairs at his parents' grave.

Gerard Lacombe, 77, had arranged with the cemetery to handle repairs to his parents' grave marker himself. This involved removing the old concrete foundation for the stone -- a single slab a little less than two metres long, about 80 centimetres wide and 40 centimetres deep.

But he was supposed to come on a business day and work under supervision, said Andre Lajoie, caretaker of the cemetery.

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Instead, Lacombe showed up on Thanksgiving, when there was no one around to supervise him. For unknown reasons, he also decided to get started with a simple shovel instead of a machine for breaking up the concrete.

Lacombe began by digging a trench all around the concrete slab. Then he started digging away the soil underneath the slab.

"He dug all around, and then he got into the hole," Lajoie said.

Eventually, he crawled right under the concrete, and that's when the soil shifted and the heavy slab fell on top of him.

Lacombe's name is already engraved on the marker at his wife's grave, across the lawn from where he died.

© The Calgary Herald 2008

Submitted on 10/15/2008

Submitted by: Kerri Rae
Reference: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/story.html?id=132d38d9-37dc-4f4a-8e0a-eb7e54c94c6e

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

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Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Thanks, Kerri, we've already received this story a few times but I think this provides some much needed additional detail.


Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
What Bruce said.


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