We’ve already covered the Darwin Awards
a few times before, but we’ll give a quick
recap just in case you’re new here.
Every year, the Darwin Awards are given posthumously
to people who have rid themselves from this
planet by acts of sheer stupidity.
Someone can also be eligible to win a Darwin
Award if they have done something so outrageously
dumb that their injuries made them infertile,
and unable to pass on their DNA to the next
generation.
But there is yet another category in the Darwin
Awards that we have not covered yet, and that
is the honorable mentions.
These are the people who were very close to
proving that Darwin was right about survival
of the fittest, but they just barely made
it out of a dumb situation with their lives
intact…
10.
Connecticut Woman Nearly Goes Out With a Bang
It was a dark and stormy September night in
Bridgeport, Connecticut in 2018.
As per usual with heavy thunderstorms, all
of the homes in the town lost power.
A 30-year-old mother of two was home with
her children when they were plunged into darkness.
This woman could not find any candles upstairs,
so she made her way down to the basement to
search through boxes.
She pulled out what she believed were a set
of long candles.
However, the objects in her hand were actually
sticks of dynamite.
Even after lighting the explosive, it never
occurred to her to snuff them out until they
exploded in her hands.
Somehow, this woman made it out alive without
injuring anyone but herself.
She lost several fingers, and had severe burns
on her face.
Buying and selling dynamite is illegal in
Connecticut.
(Clearly, to prevent situations like this.)
So, technically, the woman was breaking the
law by having it in her home in the first
place.
But the police decided that her injuries were
enough punishment to fit the crime, and chose
not to press charges.
9.
California Man Doesn’t Play by the Rules
Whenever you go to pump gas in the United
States, you’ve probably seen those signs
warning you to never dispense gasoline in
containers that are not designed to hold it.
But that did not stop one California man from
breaking the rules.
He purchased gas and pumped it into a plastic
water bottle in order to save it in his car
just in case he needed to refuel later.
In April 2019, this man was in a Target parking
lot with his girlfriend when he realized that
his car was out of gas.
He pulled out his trusty bottle full of emergency
petrol.
The only trouble was that he could not get
the gas out of the bottle, because the rim
of the bottle was not designed to dispense
gasoline.
So he decided it might help to widen the neck
of the bottle with his lighter.
Apparently, no one ever taught this man that
gasoline plus fire equals explosions.
He began to burn alive from head-to-toe, but
managed to get out of the car that was now
completely engulfed in flames.
Nearby witnesses rushed over to help him snuff
out the fire, and called an ambulance.
He made it out alive, but not before suffering
third degree burns on his entire body.
8.
Mexican Man Would Die For Love
It’s hard for anyone to let go of someone
they love.
But there is a big difference between trying
to move on in a healthy way, and spiraling
into an unhealthy obsession.
For one 50-year-old man living in Puerto Penasco,
Mexico, that pain after his breakup escalated
to insane proportions.
He and his ex-girlfriend had been together
for 14 years, but he was incredibly jealous,
and his violent temper had escalated to domestic
violence.
His girlfriend finally had enough, and broke
up with him.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop him from
trying to stalk her.
This man dug a hole in his ex-girlfriend’s
yard and began burrowing a tunnel that was
meant to go underneath her house.
For a few days straight, he continued to dig
this hole in hopes that he could go underneath
her house and burst inside.
The only thing that he did not account for
was the fact that he needed to survive in
that tunnel until it was complete.
So on April 29, 2019, the woman heard a scratching
noise coming from her basement.
It turns out that her ex was trapped underneath
the floorboards, dying of dehydration.
When the police arrived, they had to help
him get out of the tunnel.
He survived, only to be arrested by the cops.
7.
Aussie Man Nearly Escapes Capture
In May 2019, a concerned citizen from Melbourne,
Australia noticed an elderly man driving a
mobility scooter on the shoulder of a major
highway.
The cars on the highway were driving an average
of 100 kilometers per hour (or 62 miles per
hour), which should have spelled out instant
death for the man weaving on and off the shoulder.
When the citizen tried to speak to the old
man, he told him to “F*** off,” and kept
driving.
The concerned driver stayed behind the old
man with his hazard lights on, to ensure that
no one else would hit him, and dialed triple-zero
for Australia’s emergency services.
It turns out that this was a 92-year-old named
Bruce, and he was on the run and had been
reported missing earlier that day.
The police arrived, and his family came to
collect him.
6.
Yogi Defies Gravity
If you have a friend who does yoga, you are
probably fully aware of their hobby, because
they will most likely post pictures on their
Instagram every time they are able to nail
a new pose.
In fact, if you don’t take a copious amount
of pictures while doing yoga, did it really
happen?
In 2019, a 23-year-old college student named
Alexa Terraza wanted to prove to her friends
that she could do a gravity-defying yoga pose
to make all other yogis jealous.
She asked her friend to record her while she
showed off doing a pose over the balcony of
an apartment in San Pedro, Mexico.
The only trouble is that what comes up must
eventually come down, and she fell 80 feet
off the balcony to the ground below.
Somehow, she miraculously survived after being
rushed to the hospital with 100 broken bones.
5.
Humans are Friends, Not Food
An Australian woman named Melissa Brunning
was enjoying a leisurely afternoon on her
yacht, sailing in a remote part of Australia
called Kimberly.
This is 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) away
from Perth, and far away from the rest of
human civilization.
There was a group of four tawny nurse sharks
swimming around the back of the boat.
Instead of keeping her distance, Brunning
thought it would be a great idea to put her
hands in the water to feed the sharks.
One of the sharks chomped down on her finger,
and pulled her straight into the bay.
The entire incident was caught on video.
At first, Brunning believed that she had lost
her finger, but thankfully, it was still intact.
Since they were so far away from the nearest
hospital, her finger contracted a bad infection.
Aside from the sharks, that area is also full
of saltwater crocodiles that can grow up to
seven meters long.
She is even more lucky that one of them was
not waiting in the wings, ready to chomp much
more than her finger.
4.
Man Makes a Molten Mistake
If you visit an active volcano, you would
think that it would be common sense not to
get too close to the edge, but apparently,
some people like to laugh in the face of danger.
In 2019, a 32-year-old man was visiting the
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
He ignored all of the warning signs and crossed
the safety barriers in order to get a closer
look at the running lava.
This is when he got too close to the edge
of Kilauea caldera, and fell off a 300-foot
cliff.
Considering that fresh lava is between 1,300
and 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 700
and 1,200 degrees Celsius), you would think
that this should be an instant Darwin Award.
However, by no small miracle, the man actually
fell onto a tiny ledge inside of the mouth
of the volcano and survived.
We can only guess that he had built up years
of good karma that were finally coming in
handy.
Two and a half hours later, he was rescued
using ropes, and airlifted to a nearby hospital.
3.
Man Forgets What a Wild Animal Is
A 55-year-old man named Pieter Nortje was
celebrating his wedding anniversary in South
Africa.
He asked his wife to record a video while
he showed off to his family and friends that
he got to pet a lion.
Apparently no one told him that lions are
not the same as house cats, and he completely
ignored all of the nearby warning signs.
Nortje reached through the electric fence,
saying to the male, “Come here, lovey.
Let daddy stroke you…
If you bite me, I’ll bite you back.”
In the video footage, you can see that the
lion was actually enjoying the scratches for
a moment.
That is, until a second lion clearly did not
want him to be around, and began to bite his
arm.
Luckily for him, he was able to pull out of
the lion’s grasp.
According to hunting experts who have examined
the video footage, they say that he is very
lucky that the lions were well-fed, because
that electric fence would not have been enough
to stop the lions from mauling him to death
if they were in the mood.
2.
American Tourist Strikes Again
A little while back, we covered dangers of
dumb selfies.
Worry not, though, because as we’re about
to show you, people nearly killing themselves
to get a sweet photo for Instagram isn’t
going away anytime soon.
In June of 2019, a 23-year-old American tourist
was visiting Turin, Italy.
He couldn’t help himself once he spotted
a statue of General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmorain
riding a horse.
It was the perfect opportunity for a selfie
— at least, in his mind.
He had been out drinking all night with his
friends, and felt that it would be a fabulous
idea to to climb the historic statue so that
he could straddle the horse and take a photo.
It should be a surprise to no one that he
fell from the statue down to the street below.
He was rushed to the hospital, where it was
necessary to perform brain surgery in order
to help him survive.
1.
Florida Couple Survives A Not-So-Romantic
Evening
For those of you who have seen The Notebook,
you may remember the scene where they decide
to lay in the middle of the street on their
first date.
One Florida couple in their early 20s thought
it would be a good idea to replicate the scene
by laying in the middle of the road of a park
in West Palm Beach during the Lunar Eclipse
in January 2019.
The only problem, of course, is that reality
is almost never like the movies.
While the couple was in the middle of their
romantic look at the moon and stars, a police
officer was patrolling the park that same
night.
There were no street lights to help him see.
Suddenly, he hit what felt like a speed bump
as he ran over the couple.
Luckily for them, he was only going 5 MPH
(8.05 KPH), so they were able to survive with
non-life threatening injuries.
