The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design by Wendy Northcutt Read Free Book Online Page A

hurt.”
    Insurance covered repairs to the bike and the trailer. Luke sold the restored dream machine for $800 less than he paid, but every few weeks, he continues to receive mailings from his complimentary membership in the Harley Owners Group. Some dreams die hard.
     
    Reference: AP

P ERSONAL A CCOUNT : B LAST FROM THE P AST
    M ID -1950 S , USA
     
     
    My father and uncle were reminiscing about their youth, and they shared a rather Darwinian story. In their twenties, they succeeded in assembling one great car out of three junkers. After they accomplished this, they had enough parts left over to make a second working car—but only barely. This car was missing most of its floorboards, so they could see the ground flash past while driving. They called this a feature rather than a flaw, and decided to have fun with it.
    In the fifties, high-powered explosives were still easy to acquire. So, with quarter sticks of dynamite readily available, my future father and his brother drove around throwing dynamite sticks through the gaps in the floorboards, basically scaring the daylights out of people in cars behind them. THIS WAS FUN! They even shortened the fuses to make sure that the sticks would “safely” explode before the car behind them drove over them.
    When I heard this story, my first response was, “Weren’t you concerned about the gas tank below you?” To my amazement, they both looked rather surprised, exchanged glances, and said, “We never thought of that!”
    My grandfather just laughed and walked out of the room.
     
    Reference: Eric Vane, Personal Account

P ERSONAL A CCOUNT : B RAKE C ARE
    S UMMER 2001, USA
     
     
    “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
     
     
    I am a keen mountain biker, and was the proud owner of a fairly expensive mountain bike. My bike was fitted with “V” brakes, which are extremely effective though prone to squealing.
    My dear brother decided to have a ride on my bike one day while I was out. He noticed the squealing as he cycled down the hill we live on, toward the invariably busy crossroads at the bottom. Being a helpful sort, he headed back home and proceeded to pour a generous amount of 3-IN-ONE oil onto the brakes, before once more setting off down the hill.
    The oil worked! The only reported squealing came from my brother, as he slammed into the side of a moving VW Beetle. To this day he sports an impressive scar running from his eye socket to just past his ear.
    And yes, the bike was totaled.
     
    Reference: Personal Account

P ERSONAL A CCOUNT : W ILD W HEELCHAIR R IDE
    4 J ULY 1995, S OMEWHERE IN THE USA
     
     
    During my second year of residency in orthopedic surgery, a thirty-five-year-old roofer was admitted to the hospital after falling from a roof. His boss had told him to tie himself off to prevent a fall, but he was an experienced roofer and knew that wouldn’t happen. Nevertheless, he fell off the roof, fracturing his pelvis, his right femur, and his left tibia. An avoidable accident, but certainly not worthy of a Darwin Award. The patient underwent surgery, and was discharged from the hospital after an uneventful three-day postoperative course.
    So far, so good.
    The patient returned by Care Flight nine hours later, looking worse than he had the first time. He had torn the external fixator from one side of his pelvis, fractured his femur below the rod that had been used to fix it the first time, and fractured his tibia above the rod used to fix that, as well. And he hadn’t been anywhere near a roof.
    It turned out that he and his brother-in-law had decided to go barhopping to celebrate his recovery. Since he was stuck in a wheelchair, they figured the best way to get him from bar to bar was to duct tape his wheelchair to the bed of the pickup truck. The plan worked perfectly all evening, as they got more and more soused. Now, if only they had duct taped the roofer to his wheelchair….
    They were on their way home when his brother-in-law took a corner too