Mr. Vijay Kumar, a poor gas cylinder deliveryman in New Delhi, may not have heard of Darwin awards but his end will definitely keep the spirit of Darwin awards alive and well for some time to come.

Vijay was on assignment to deliver a cooking gas cylinder to a residential address. While installing the cylinder in customer’s kitchen, he smelt gas leakage. This situation requires not lighting fire to avoid causing a bigger fire/explosion. Vijay Kumar, on the other hand, lit a match (remember, he is a trained professional) to better pin point the source of leakage. He was successful as the source of leakage pin pointed itself in the form of huge fire and tried to engulf him.

At this stage, a lesser mortal would have followed the customer, who ran out of the kitchen on first sign of trouble (Customer was a ‘She’; this class of people do not make the Darwin award list too often). Vijay (his name means victory in his native language), being a man, decided to fight the fire despite being engulfed by the fire.

Finally, he gave up fighting the fire and decided to run for his life. A dash to open door and away from the enclosed space would have saved his life and denied him a Darwin nomination. Alas, it was not so, a police officer summarized his final moments before his eventual death as “He kept going in the direction opposite to that of the door”.

Submitted on 11/30/2009

Submitted by: Hridayesh K Gupta
Reference: The Indian Express, New Delhi Dated Dec 1, 2009

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
Searching for a gas leak you can clearly smell with a lighted match is definitely crazy in my book. Thanks, Hridayesh. Here's a link to the article: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/cylinder-delivery-agent-dies-as-gas-leak-leads-to-fire/548244/

James said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
Worthy of an "Inspector Clouseau" movie! I wonder WHAT this fellow was thinking!!! Thanks, Hridayesh!

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