DISQUALIFIED Darwin Award

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.

The Human Fly DISQUALIFIED Darwin Award Unconfirmed by Darwin (May 2001, New Zealand) You might not like this Darwin involving a thirteen-year-old girl. But think how stupid it is for a teenager to consume insect poison. What kid doesn't know better? Children who sniff aerosol propellant, of all things. As if it weren't dangerous enough inhaling random volatile propellants for fun, THIS girl was found dead with a litter of empty bug spray cans under her bed. Sniffing poison is worse than sniffing hairspray. She died with elevated butane levels in her blood, which confirm that she had been "huffing" from a can labeled with skull and crossbones. Didn't she notice the dead insects on the label? Think how stupid she was to inhale lungfuls of a nasty-smelling chemical designed to KILL things. New Zealand's reaction to the news is as expected. Coroner Gordon Matenga is calling for "bigger warnings on fly spray cans" after the second fly spray death in Waikato. He explains, "It (is) prevalent for New Zealand young people to sniff fly spray for a quick buzz." The judges are surprised any kids exist who don't know better. One fewer exists now! DISQUALIFIED! Due to Marcus Metzler's comments: "I think the Darwin Award for 'The Human Fly' is wrong. I think she pourposely sniffed from the insect spray cans in a successful suicide attempt. Children/teenagers are strongly aware of what they are doing. I personally had problems at the age of ~8 to 13 and on several times tried (to no avail) to suicide. One time with mice poison, another by breathing acetylene from a welder. "Annoyingly (at least, at that time) the 'deadliness' of a skull and crossbones, is not always that deadly. In fact, she was killed by the propellant, not the poison. "Of course - in a way - suicide is a kind of Darwin too, since the will to survive is an important fact in survival itself. But I think suicide is not the kind of Darwin this page is trying to publish. I think the reason there was no stated link to suicide was to 'protect' the parents - since suicide always leads to the unfair questions 'Why didn't they notice? What did they do to make her suicide?'" DarwinAwards.com © 1994 - 2009 Submitted by: Peter Nield Reference: New Zealand Herald

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