Pending Review
Detroit Brain Drain
Detroit's gene pool seems to be the benefiter of a most unusual brain drain. In 2012 newly-retired handyman Jerome Edwards dropped his keys down a drain, and levered the 130lb (59kg) cover off to go fishing.
Squeezing himself headfirst down the narrow opening, Jerome managed to get himself stuck. He drowned in less than two feet of water.
"We don't know why he would do something like that when he could have just asked the maintenance guy for the extra set of keys," his niece said. Top-level handyman skills, on display!
Bizarrely, while Jerome was still inflicting his handyman decisions on unsuspecting clients, Detroit saw a similar incident in 1996. That feckless fool used a coat hangar to remove the grate but didn't think of using it to fish the keys out. He, too, drowned.
For failing to heed both the long years of his profession and the ghosts of local history, please welcome another loser of Detroit's Brain Drain!
2012: https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/2012/01/19/detroit-man-dies-after-trying-to-fish-out-keys-from-drain/
1996: https://apnews.com/article/587c7cc0df6e8f9a864b0d1606f3875a
And a note to the mods: While this submission is for the 2012 incident, I wonder if it might be an idea to write it up with the second one attached to it? (If it's selected for immortalisation). I had the idea from seeing it done on an older award, where a sort of "parasite award" was doled out at the same time: https://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2000-11.html
Submitted on 02/14/2021
Submitted by:
Iona Macdonald
Reference: