1999 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. |
   |
|
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow 
DISQUALIFIED BY DARWIN January 2008: "This should have been disqualified many years ago, based on a combination of (mental illness) and (not obviously dangerous)." Reader comments follow the story, below. (January 1999, England) Some people with nervous habits have good reason to be anxious. In January, a British teenager was rushed to hospital complaining of severe stomach pains. Surgeons who operated in a desperate - but unsuccessful - attempt to save her life were amazed to find a tangled mass of human hair the size of a football lodged in her abdomen. Rachel, a 17-year-old hairdresser trainee, had been in the habit of chewing the ends of her tresses since early childhood. Specialist registrar Dr Andrew Stearman, of Poole General Hospital, Dorset, said: "The biochemical composition of hair makes it impossible for digestive juices in the stomach to break it down. It therefore accumulates, much like it builds up in the plughole of a bath or shower, attracting more hair and other food." Recording a verdict of accidental death, Hastings coroner Alan Craze said: "This was something Rachel was doing from time to time by habit. She would have had the impression, if she had thought about it at all, that it was passing through her system. Unfortunately, it was not, and built to a massive size." Bezoars can be made from almost anything, but are usually composed of hair. They are highly prized by shamans as protection against poisons. Pathologist Nera Patel later measured the hairball - known as a trichobezoar - at 1 foot long, 10 inches wide and 4 inches thick. She said: "It was closely compacted and intertwined in the shape of a football. No one in our medical team had seen anything like it." Rachel's mother Norma, who was shown a picture of the fatal obstruction, simply said: "It looked like a dead rat." DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2008
|
|
Adrian McDaniels objects, "This poor girl doesn't deserve to be llisted. She was fairly innocent, being only 17 and not educated about the dangers of eating hair. She never knew that hair is resistant to the digestion process. The fact isn't commonly taught in high school Biology class. I only know it's indigestible because of owls, which disgorge pellets consisting of the packed hair and bone of their prey. I'm sure that if someone had told her that hair doesn't digest at all, she would have stopped eating it. When I was very young, and learned that it takes gum seven years to digest, I stopped swallowing my gum because I thought it was all collecting in my stomach in a big pile." Mark Stanbrook agrees. "I was given a copy of your book for Christmas and by and large it's very funny and well written. However! The story concerning a girl here in England who died from swallowing her own hair is missing some information. She ate her own hair not through choice but due to a psychological condition -- a mental illness. I fail to see how this qualifies for a Darwin Award. She didn't die through an exceptionally stupid act. She had a compulsion." Dr. Max Imum says, "Should she be considered a Darwin Award? I do not think so. [u]There is no astounding misapplication of judgement.[/u] Nervous habits aren't amazingly stupid. This is the tragic accident of a girl who chewed on her tresses and died from it. Would you say a person who whistles as a nervous habit and accidently calls some hound dogs Darwin Award worthy? Chewing on tresses is definitely not an act that an average person can tell is a bad idea. It should not be considered a Darwin Award." |
 Next
|
