Darwin says, "Accepted into the Archive. (personal account)"

This is a story about a friend of mine, who we'll call Brad. Brad tends to be rather wild at times, especially when he's been drinking.

Anyway, a group of us were down in Cincinnati Ohio for the weekend to visit friends and watch the 2006 Super Bowl. One evening we decided to go to a local bowling alley.

Everything was going fine for a while. However, on one of his turns, Brad had a bit of trouble controlling the ball. It's not obvious whether the ball stuck on his fingers or he simply released it far later than expected, but the ball went nearly straight up.

It was almost as if time stood still. Everyone else in our group was frozen with our mouths open. Brad leaned forward and managed to say "Where'd it go" before suffering a glancing blow to the head as gravity took its course.

The entire bowling alley went dead silent.

Brad stumbled, put his hand to his head, and said "I'm ok." He then removed his hand, saw it was covered in blood, and rushed to the restroom.

Naturally, most of us wanted to get him to the hospital immediately, but Brad would have none of it. We left the bowling alley, and Brad was very upset, but not because he was hurt. He was upset because the evening was ruined and we didn't finish the game.

Later that night, we were able to convince Brad that yes, he should go to the hospital. While he was there, at least three different doctors and nurses came in to hear the story of what happened, apparently not believing what they'd heard from their colleagues. In the end, Brad got some staples in his head and was released.

Two years later, I found out one more detail about this night. It turns out Brad went to the airport after the big football game, and had so many staples in his head that he set off the metal detector.

This wasn't the first of Brad's escapades, nor was it the last. Though I did not witness the others, I have heard of three other similar stories. In the first, Brad was racing his car on the highway against another friend in a blizzard, when one of his windshield wipers flew completely off. Normal people would slow down and focus on maintaining control, but Brad chose to instead stick his head out the window and continue racing. In another case, our hero decided that going thirty feet around a chain link fence was too much trouble, so he decided to climb it. While I'm not entirely sure how it happened, the end result was Brad screaming his head off on the other side, having ripped the crotch out of his pants on the fence and fallen bleeding over the other side. In the most recent event, Brad decided to dive headfirst down a muddy slope at a rained-out NASCAR event, and ended up with a small rock lodged in his forehead. The doctor in this case is reported to have said "so that's what your skull looks like," and Brad's forehead was ballooned out for several months.

It's not obvious if Brad will eventually earn himself a Darwin Award, but he's making a spirited attempt at it.

Submitted on 11/18/2008

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference:

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
LOL!!! Definitely trying for that Darwin! He's certainly short a few neurons. This is excellent for a Personal Account, and if you can get the med recs or other proof, we can look at an upgrade! Thanks, submit again, and PLEASE keep us posted!

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
It sounds to me like Brad is trying a little too hard to win a Darwin Award. He should relax a little, let nature take its course, and I'm sure he'll achieve that lofty goal eventually. Thanks for some great stories!

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