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| Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. |
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(September 7, 2003, Cambodia) Khim, nicknamed "The Big Giant," was an
intimidatingly large former military policeman when he arrived at the Phnom
Penh home of a drug dealer to extort money and amphetamines. He was a much
smaller man soon afterwards.
He pulled the pin from a grenade to threaten the dealer, who immediately decided to give him the items he demanded. Then Khim, who had been drinking, forgot to put the pin back before slipping the grenade into his pocket. He walked to his motorbike, well satisfied with the transaction. As he climbed aboard... the grenade exploded. Whether the drug dealer recovered his cash (and in what condition!) is unknown.
Reader Darren says, "Returning the pin to a grenade will not render
it inert, once triggered; no fuse-mechanism will halt until it is blown
from the grenade. Returning a pin to a 'thrown' (or otherwise triggered)
grenade is a losing proposition. I think our bandit, a military-police
officer, remembered the pin, but skipped basic-instruction.
DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2008
While it is true that once the ignition sequence has begun it
cannot be stopped, that has nothing to do with the ring. The ring is a
safety which retains the spoon. Once the spoon has been released,
then the grenade is active.
The actual trigger is a small hammer held down by the "spoon" ...
modern grenades worldwide have some variation of this. What most
likely happened is that the moment the awardee put it in his pocket,
he released the spoon, setting off the trigger.
I am an Ammo-Tech currently serving in the military and I receive
grenades without the pin and tape wrapped around the spoon on a
regular basis. The grenade is not activated until the spoon is
released.
Are you happy to see me, or is that a grenade in your pocket?
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Visit the Darwin Awards Giftshop Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection
Hardback. 240 pages. Autographed.$15 A fresh collection of magnificent misadventures! Lust, Vanity, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, and Wrath extract an evolutionary toll on the wicked. Salute the owner of an equipment training school who demonstrates the dangers of driving a forklift by failing to survive the filming of his own safety video. Witness the man who becomes a victim of his own strange passion for jumping into rivers. Heed the honest bricklayer who loses a battle of wits with 300 pounds of tools. This book includes more History of the Awards, Gordon's Law, and 10 discussions of evolution, including speciation and the role of verbal memes in civilization. Autographed by Author! |
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