Emails From Grandma

And once again,
it's time for the Darwin Award Nominees. "The Darwins" are awarded
every year to the persons who died in the stupidest manner,
thereby removing themselves from the gene
 pool. 

  
Here is the official 2010
list.  
This year’s nominees
are: 
  
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 around 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. 
  
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
 buildings' 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" (ed. note:
????) members of the 200-man association. 
  
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 
  
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 nuts 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. Priorities,
after all!! 
  
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.