Unfortunately, at that point the elevator itself was at a height equivalent to a 4th floor (roughly 25 feet, 8 meters). The thieves climbed on the cage of the elevator and, standing there, cut through the cables that kept the elevator in place.

They plummeted down. One of the thieves (25 years of age) was killed upon impact, and his companion was heavily wounded and ended up in hospital with serious damage to his abdomen.

Link to the Spanish newspaper "ABC" with the news, and a photo of the building site where the incident took place:

http://www.abc.es/20121110/local-madrid/abci-muere-caer-desde-cuarto-201211101744.html

Superficially this incident is similar to a Darwin Award from 2008 wherein a thief in the Czech Republic tried to steal elevator cables, but in his case the elevator cage was in the ground floor and what happened was that the counterweight, no longer secured, fell down and crushed him. Link to the story in the Darwin Awards site:

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-08.html

Submitted on 11/11/2012

Submitted by: José Beltrán
Reference: Spanish newspaper "ABC", November 10th, 2012

Copyright © 2012 DarwinAwards.com

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
...the cartooniness and the stupidity make me say 'yes!' to this. Total. lack. of. thought. Thanks Jose!

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
Unbelievable... Simply unbelievable... Thanks, Jose!

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