NOMINEE No.1 [San Jose Mercury News]
An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.
NOMINEE No.2 [Kalamazoo Gazette]
James Burns, 34, of Alamo,Mich., was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police described 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, N.C., when, 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.
NOMINEE No.5 [Bloomburg News Service]
A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.
NOMINEE No.8 [AP, St. Louis]
Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store; paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.
NOMINEE No.9 [Unknown]
To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock-and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
And the winner is...
John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington, decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at Gorge, Washington. Having no tickets, but 18 beers among them they sat in the parking lot and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy enough to hop over the nine foot high fence and sneak into the show. The two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was for John, 100 pounds heavier than Sal, to hop over, and then assist his friend over the fence. Unfortunately for John, the Fence was a 30 foot drop on the other side. Having heaved himself over he found himself crashing through a tree, falling to the ground. His fall was abruptly stopped by a large branch which had been snagged by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him. Figuring the bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife and proceed to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. When finally free, John crashed below into, Holly Bushes. The sharp leaves scratched his whole body, and now being without his shorts he was the unwilling victim of a holly branch penetrating his rectal cavity. To make matters worse, his pocket knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his left thigh. Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to throw him a rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds less, he decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the pickup truck. This is when things went bad. Sal in his drunken state, put the truck into the wrong gear, and proceeded to press on the gas and crash through the fence, landing on and killing his friend. Sal was thrown from the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and died at the scene. Police arrived to find, a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet from the vehicle and, upon moving the truck, a half naked man with numerous scratches, a holly stick up his butt, a knife in his thigh and a pair of shorts dangling from the trees 25 feet in the air.
As far as I know this is all genuine stuff. The Darwin award is presented every year - last year to a guy who thought he would fly around his garden in a garden chair attached to four weather balloons. He was eventually spotted by the pilots of a 747, entering the restricted airspace of Los Angeles airport.