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Darwin Awards
2004 Honorable Mentions
Email a Friend The stupidity displayed by the participants in the following tales stops short of the ultimate Darwin Awards sacrifice. Nevertheless, we salute the spirit and innovation of their misadventures. Next Prev Random

Crotch Rocket
2004 Honorable Mention
Confirmed True by Darwin

(28 March 2004, Jacksonville, Florida) Shannon, 35, had a fun idea for a prank: shoot a six-inch rocket at his girlfriend as he drove by in his Ford Mustang. But before he could launch it out the window, the fuse burned down to the ignition point, and the rocket began to ricochet around the inside of his car, finally exploding between his legs. The flash temporarily blinded him, which protected him from seeing the extent of the damage.

Neighbors saw the flash and heard the explosion. They rushed toward the car to find a person on fire! They extinguished the flames, to reveal a man singed from his groin to his toes, with an outline of his sandals burned onto his feet.

"I thought I was dead," Shannon told a reporter. "I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't walk." He was taken to a medical center and treated for second-degree burns. When interviewed by a reporter, he reflected on his potentially fatal encounter with rockets, raised his hairless eyebrows, and said, "No more of those!"

DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2009
Submitted by: Brandi, Tanishia A. Williams, Mark Heffington, Max Lauf
Reference: WJXT-TV, Florida Times-Union, AP

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The Darwin Awards Gift Shop

Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection

Hardback. 240 pages. Autographed.
$15
A fresh collection of magnificent misadventures! Lust, Vanity, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, and Wrath extract an evolutionary toll on the wicked. Salute the owner of an equipment training school who demonstrates the dangers of driving a forklift by failing to survive the filming of his own safety video. Witness the man who becomes a victim of his own strange passion for jumping into rivers. Heed the honest bricklayer who loses a battle of wits with 300 pounds of tools.

This book includes more History of the Awards, Gordon's Law, and 10 discussions of evolution, including speciation and the role of verbal memes in civilization.

Autographed by Author!

 


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