2002 Darwin Awards

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.

Next Time Try a Taxi DISQUALIFIED (11 August 1999, Texas) Noel, a 31-year-old Houston man, spotted a truck left running as its driver filled jugs with filtered water from a vending machine. The idiot hopped into the truck, not realizing that four children were still occupying their seats. The mother heard a scream, and turned to see her truck speeding away. Normally a stolen vehicle is not the target of immediate police attention, but in this case, authorities could not stand by while children were in danger. A two-hour "car chase" on the freeways of Houston ensued. The chase came to a dramatic conclusion as the truck sped onto the Jesse Jones Tollbridge, which stands 150 feet over the Houston shipping channel at its apex. With police in hot pursuit, the truck accelerated from 75 to 90 mph, and Noel stuck his head out the window as he steered towards the right-side rail. He shifted into neutral, and tried to jump from the window over the guardrail, and into the seawater below. But in his haste, Noel failed to notice the chain link fence installed to thwart jumpers. As the truck sideswiped the guardrail, the fence slammed into Noel's skull, ripping "what was left of him" out the window. Adding insult to injury, his corpse was crushed by a large truck that had been following close behind. The young occupants of the truck suffered only minor scrapes and bruises. Incidentally, if Noel had survived the impact with the chain link fence, and the 15-story free fall to the water below, he would still have been in trouble. The water was only a few feet feet deep beneath that spot on the overpass. DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2005 Submitted by: Tom D'Ambrosio Reference: Houston Chronicle, Harris County Deputies' Organization: The Voice of Law Enforcement Disqualified 23 March 2003: No astounding misapplication of judgment, and innocent bystanders injured. This man put children in harm's way, and almost certainly traumatized them, so innocent bystanders were injured. Furthermore, his manner of death, leaping from a car during a police chase, was not extraordinarily stupid, it was merely lurid. Therefore, the story violates two rules, and is disqualified.

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