When Charles Darwin developed
his Theory of Evolution,
he discovered animals bred selectively,
so the strongest and
fittest of the species were
more likely to mate and pass on their DNA.
Darwin called this Natural Selection.
But every day people do stuff
so stupid they actually die,
and so no longer have the ability
to pass their DNA to future generations.
Long after he died, the
Darwin Awards were created
as a tongue-in-cheek way
to remember those people
who have removed themselves from humanity
through their own stupidity.
Coming up, are the top
20 dumbest of the dumb
Darwin Award winners.
Number 20, live wire.
When inmate Michael Godwin
had his death penalty commuted
to a life sentence, he
was grateful to be able
to walk away from death row.
But it seems that karma had other plans.
One night in 1989, he
discovered the television
in his cell was broken and,
deciding to fix it himself,
embarked on a little DIY.
Foolishly, he thought
it would be a great idea
to use his teeth instead of a wire cutter.
Biting down on a live wire
he electrocuted himself,
not helped by the fact he was sitting
on a metal toilet at the time.
Godwin may have escaped
the electric chair,
but it seems destiny was intent
on seeing him die by electrocution.
Number 19, airless airhead.
When a Brazilian farmer
discovered a bee hive
on his property in 2002, he
knew precisely two things.
Bees can sting and they needed
to be removed with fire.
No one knows why he decided
that fire was his best option.
All we do know is that he
fashioned a makeshift helmet
from a plastic bag to save
himself from both the smoke
and the bee stings.
But besides all his careful
planning, he didn't bother
to think that he might have to breathe,
and failed to poke air
holes into the plastic bag.
When he didn't return
home, his wife set out
to find him and soon
discovered him suffocated
beneath the beehive.
He was untouched by the bees, though.
Number 18, chimney grenade.
One afternoon in 2005, Marko decided
to clean the chimney in his workshop.
But when he tried to use a simple broom,
he realized it was too small for the job.
Clearly, he had to improvise.
He decided what he needed was a chain
to pull the broom through the chimney
and a heavy object to weigh it down.
Looking in his workshop,
he thought he'd found the
perfect thing, a grenade.
All he had to do now was weld
it to the broom and chain.
Except he failed to think
about what could happen
as he switched on his welding equipment.
As soon as the flame met
the grenade, it exploded,
killing him instantly.
The chimney, however, was
left completely untouched
by the blast.
Number 17, behind enema lines.
Texas shop owner Michael was an alcoholic,
but not an ordinary one.
Due to a painful throat condition,
he couldn't drink through his mouth.
This meant he had to find other
ways to consume his liquor
and his wife said he soon
became addicted to enemas.
This popular method is far more dangerous,
as alcohol is absorbed directly
through the capillaries in the rectum.
So, one night he wanted to get blind drunk
and decided the only way to do it
was to pour a hundred
fluid ounces of sherry
up his rear end.
What he didn't know was
that after he'd passed out,
the alcohol kept absorbing and
he was dead by the morning.
The toxicology report stated
he had a blood alcohol level
of 0.47%, meaning he'd
pretty much embalmed himself.
Number 16, parking brake fail.
When we're constantly reminded to recycle,
plastic bags can be a source of annoyance.
So, when a 58-year-old
Australian woman was driving
to the grocery store and
thought she'd forgotten
her plastic bags, she
promptly stopped her car
to check the trunk.
If only she was more
worried about her parking
than she was about her grocery bags,
she would have remembered
to put the handbrake on.
As she checked the trunk, the
car began rolling backwards,
crushing her to death.
Somehow, she managed to run herself over.
Number 15, earesponsible.
A Romanian man in 2002
decided he would skip checking
the local train schedules
and instead, deduce
if the train was coming through
the power of his own ears.
Lying on the railway
line, he pressed his ears
to the tracks to hear if
the train was approaching.
Clearly, his hearing wasn't
all he thought it was
because he never heard it coming.
He was hit by an oncoming express train
and died immediately.
Number 14, lava la vida loca.
Don't you just hate it when your lava lamp
doesn't heat up quickly enough?
Well, twenty-four-year-old Philip did.
After plugging in his lava
lamp and waiting a few minutes,
he was disappointed to see
that nothing was happening.
Eager to get it working, he
decided to speed up the process
by placing it on a hot stove.
But, with the contents of a
lava lamp only being designed
to withstand temperatures
of up to 40 degrees,
it quickly overheated and exploded.
Poor Philip was killed when
the glass from the lamp
shattered and penetrated his heart.
Not so groovy.
Number 13, under pressure.
Two bored comrades in a Romanian
aluminum factory decided
to have some fun with an
air hose actually used
for industrial machinery.
When blowing dust off their
clothes became boring,
they cranked things up a notch and decided
to remove their clothes entirely.
Things quickly moved
below the belt when one
of the guys decided he was
going to see what happened
when he pumped six bars
of atmospheric pressure
into his anus.
Not only did he break
employment regulations,
but he also broke right
through his intestinal tract
and he died within minutes
from severe internal hemorrhaging.
Number 12, danger zone.
In 2017 two United States
Navy pilots got a little
too carried away with Top Gun,
when they decided to completely
abandon safety regulations
to perform daredevil-ish stunts.
Reaching astonishing speeds
while flying as low as 210 feet,
a good 300 feet below their
minimum permitted altitude,
things were bound to take a downward turn
as they swapped controls back and forth.
Descending too low and slow,
one of the pilots traded off
controls to his co-pilot,
but it was too late.
The T-45C Goshawk crashed
before they could safely eject themselves.
Instructing pilot
Lieutenant Burch was fond
of the phrase, there are old pilots
and there are bold pilots.
He failed to mention that there
are also outrageously dumb ones.
Number 11, cruise control.
The fastest human can run
over 27 miles per hour,
but that's only after
accelerating during a run-up.
A Dutch teenager in 2004
thought he could do better
than that and get close to
that speed straight away.
In a bid to impress his friends,
he set his car to cruise
control at 20 miles per hour
and told them he was
going to jump out and run
alongside the car before jumping back in
and driving away.
But his shocked friends could
only look on as he stepped
out the moving car and immediately
smashed his head on the tarmac.
He died the following day.
Number 10, treasure hunt.
Described as the world's
largest treasure hunt,
the Geocashing app allows
people follow online clues
and find small treasure
boxes, known as geocaches,
hidden in their area.
Sounds like harmless fun
until someone decides
to head down a flooded
waterway in search of trinkets.
When meteorologists
warned the Czech Republic
of impending rainstorms,
most people paid attention.
But not this group of
Geocachers who thought
it would be clever to climb
into an underground waterworks tunnel.
Although two members
of the group survived,
two others were swept away,
with one young man still reported missing.
Number nine, dying for a smoke.
Nobody likes long bus journeys.
They're cramped and boring,
not to mention you're
basically sharing a tin can
with dozens of strangers and their farts.
One Scottish woman
especially hated the idea
of spending twelve hours stuck on a coach
from Glasgow to London
without a cigarette.
Passengers reported that she
grew increasingly agitated
and watched in horror as
she began throwing herself
at the passenger door.
The bus was traveling at 60 miles per hour
when she tumbled out into the road
before falling under
the wheels of the bus.
Smoking really does kill.
Number eight, footrest.
Most people go to the movies
to see the drama unfold
on the screen, not beside them.
When a local man booked
tickets in the VIP area
of the cinema complex, he
was hoping for a good time.
What he got instead was a
ticket to the Darwin Awards.
After dropping his phone beneath his seat,
he tried to retrieve it, only
to get his head wedged
inside the footrest.
If this wasn't bad
enough, he then suffered
a cardiac arrest and died in hospital.
Number seven, Victoria Falls.
50 year old Michael was a clever man.
Not only was he a college headmaster,
he was also a respected geography lecturer
on the conferences circuit.
While on a trip to the
Victoria Falls bridge,
he was happily taking
photos of his girlfriend
when he dropped his glasses over the edge.
Thinking he wouldn't be
able to enjoy the view
of the glorious Victoria
Falls without them,
he tried to retrieve them,
only to fall 40 feet to his death.
Number six, killer whale bone.
This historic entry into the Darwin Awards
sees another clever man,
Founding Father of the USA,
Gouverneur Morris, come to an untimely end
through an eye-watering
DIY medical procedure.
When Morris began suffering
from a blockage in his urethra,
he took matters into his own hands.
Inserting a whalebone into his urethra,
all he managed to do was give
himself a deadly infection.
He died November 6, 1816,
probably feeling pretty silly.
Number five, distracted driver.
58-year-old Clifford Jones was
driving without a seatbelt.
He was also driving without pants.
When a regular drive just
wasn't interesting enough,
he decided to watch a bit of adult content
on his phone and have some fun.
If only he'd kept his hands on the wheel.
With the blood rushing away from his head,
he grew increasingly distracted
and lost control of his car.
As it crashed, he hurtled
through the sunroof
and died on impact.
Number four, posing with a grenade.
Faking a smile, posing with angry animals,
posing with a primed grenade,
all things people will
do for attention online.
Yes, you heard me right.
In 2017, Alexander Sasha
Chechik from Russia
pulled the pin out of a hand
grenade while in his car
and posted photographs
of himself holding it
to his girlfriend, probably as a way
to show off his balls of brainless steel.
A source who spoke to
the Russian news service
reporting the incident said,
"the guy didn't manage to
"insert the hand grenade pin back in."
The pin is the safety mechanism.
Its the lever on the side
is the firing mechanism
that activates the grenade when released.
However, it's still not worth risking it
by removing the pin.
Police categorized his
death as an accident,
and not suicide, as
they believed he thought
it wouldn't explode as
long as he didn't throw it.
Number three, bear selfie.
Prabhu Bhatara from
India was on his way home
from a wedding when he
spotted a black bear.
Seeing this as a great photo opportunity,
he got close to the bear, and attempted
to take a selfie with it.
As he did, the bear mauled him.
He died shortly after due to his injuries.
My advice, stay far away from bears.
They may be cute, but
if you photograph them
at an angle that makes them
look fat, its game over.
Number two, sawing into a grenade.
Two pathologists at a German
symposium dinner told the tale
of a man who stumbled across
a World War 2 grenade.
Instead of staying well clear,
he wanted to open it up
to see how it worked.
Back home, he placed it
inside a vice and tried
to saw it perfectly in half.
The saw detonated the
grenade and the man died
from a fatal head injury.
Upon post-mortem, it was discovered
there was very little brain
matter left inside his skull.
Although the two pathologists joked
that there couldn't have
been much to start with.
Before we get to our number
one dumbest Darwin Award,
here are a few honorable mentions.
There's this man who planked on a Tiger.
There's no way he walked
away from that one.
Then there's this guy
who bit a tiger's tail.
Wait, is that the same guy?
Poor tiger!
Oh, and this woman who got
something stuck in her handgun.
Nice.
Okay, so back to the final
award in our countdown!
Number one, smokin' hot.
Gary Banning from North Carolina
was at his friend's house
when he spotted a mysterious
jar of tasty-looking liquid.
Assuming it was hot sauce, and
without bothering to check,
he flipped off the lid
and started to drink it.
But he soon discovered it
wasn't hot sauce at all,
but a jar of gasoline.
The shock of chugging gasoline
was too much for Gary,
so he spat it out, then tried
to calm down with a cigarette.
As soon as he lit it, he caught fire
and died the next day from his injuries.
So, which of these Darwin Award Winners
do you think is the dumbest?
Let me know in the comments!
