Around 10 years ago, I was fifteen and unknowingly staring down the barrel of a potential Darwin Award, as my genes were only mine at this point.

A contigent of friends and myself had a fairly tame 15 y.o. party - which is to say there was no alcohol around, hardly. This party however was held out o a farm reserve that heralded a 8-12m rock quarry. The night was long as it was summer and a good time was had by all.

The next morning my friend and I went exploring around the quarry and had found all manner of refuse and discarded treasures. Being bored (the Darwin trigger it would seem) as everyone else was still asleep, we thought it would be interesting to see a shopping trolley fall over the quarry.

Being an Australian summer it was already around 30C at 10:00am and my freind and I proceeded to pull this rather heavy trolley up the dirt track. Very exhausting work in the end. Now there were several 'fall points' along the quarry; these were points along the track that had fissures or slopes on them. Once we got arbitrarily high enough (say 8m), we picked our 'fall point' and set our trolley up.

We pushed our steel burden down the fissure only to have it jam against the growing tree that was located in many such points. After our struggle to get the trolley into place and the subsequent let down of anticipation I thought it would be fine if I just slid down and kick the trolley past the tree ...which I did. Unsuprisingly, the trolley went free and over the quarry face. And there was now no hinderence to stop me going with it. Except the tree. I managed to just grab the roots as I began falling and was held in place. I looked up to my friend and squeaked "Could you pull me up now?"

If not for him and that tree, I would have been a candidate for the greatest posthumous medal; the Darwin Award.

Submitted on 01/06/2009

Submitted by: Dennis Wright
Reference:

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Lucky you! Yup, boredom is a trigger for DA related actions. Granted you were only 15, but the physics of the situation should have been obvious, and we tend to be a little looser on PAs anyway. Thanks, Dennis, and submit again!

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Quarries are like fly traps for kids. The ones south of Boston were popular in the summer since they were filled with water. The only problem was that they were also filled with all sorts of garbage - everything from shopping carts to cars - so diving into them was pretty risky. Just about every summer somebody would lose their life. Thankfully they've since been filled in (with dirt from Boston's "Big Dig") so as not to tempt anybody else. Thanks for a great story, Dennis!

The Darwin Awards Gift Shop

The Darwin Awards Condom Keep yourself out of the gene pool! A condom in a matchbook, useful for emergency contraception, bachelor parties, frat parties, and important rites of passage. LOADED inside and out with funny quotes and stories. Everyone loves this item! Friends don't let friends reproduce! $13 for Pack of 4