DARWIN AWARDS 2007

Nominee No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News]




An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to

break a former girlfriends windshield, accidentally

shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing

a hole in his gut.





Nominee No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette]





James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, MI, was killed

in March as he was trying to repair what police

describe as a "farm-type truck". Burns got a friend

to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung

underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a

troubling noise. Burns clothes caught on something,

however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the

drive shaft".



Nominee No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record]





Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to

death in December in Newton, NC. Awakening to the

sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he

reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith &

Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to

his ear. (For whatever reason, residents of Southern

states always seem to figure prominently among the

Darwin nominees.)





Nominee No. 4: [UPI, Toronto]





Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of

windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed

through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors

to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39,

fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank

Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the

strength of the building's windows to visiting law

students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations

of window strength according to police reports. Peter

Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day

Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was

"one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man

firm.



Nominee No. 5: [The News of the Weird]





Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird

posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting

South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction

before having his sentence reduced to life in prison.

While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting

to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was

electrocuted.





Nominee No. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]





A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal

explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a

cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle

loader, was killed Monday night when the weapon

discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said.

Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural

Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said

Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle-loader that had

not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to

look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.




Nominee No. 7: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]





A man cleaning a bird feeder on the balcony of his

condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped

and fell 23 stories to his death. Stefan Macko, 55,

was standing on a wheelchair when the accident

occurred, said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel

Regional Police. "It appears that the chair moved,

and he went over the balcony," Honer said.




Finally, THE WINNER: [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]





Two local men were injured when their pickup truck

left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on

State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy

Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after

midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and

Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning

to Des Arc after a frog catching trip. On an overcast

Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights

malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the

headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned

out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis

noticed that the .22 caliber bullets from his pistol

fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering

wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the

headlights again began to operate properly, and the

two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River

Bridge. After traveling approximately 20 miles, and

just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently

overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the

testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting

the pavement, and striking a tree. Poole suffered

only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but

will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to

his testicles, which will never operate as intended.

Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and

released.





"Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston

shot his balls off, or we might both be dead," stated

Wallis.





"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the

world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe

that those two would admit how this accident

happened," said Snyder.





Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia ( Poole's

wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught, and

did anyone get them from the truck???





(Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of

their misadventure, as normally required by Darwin

Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did,

in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene

pool.)