When I was a kid, everyone loved the funny voices you could make when you sucked the helium out of a balloon at some ones birthday party. Invariably, you would have that one kid who would keep doing it, balloon after balloon after balloon. Eventually that kid would either get the worst headache of their life from inhaling that much helium instead of the more life friendly gas oxygen, or they would get the worst headache of their life after some adult smacked then on the head.

This is the story of 2 of these kids who grew up, met each other, and died.

College students Jason Ackerman and Sara Rydman, both 21, lived in an apartment building in South Florida, when one day they found that there was a new sign advertising the place. The sign was on the side of a huge helium balloon tied to one of the buildings. The wanna-be-the-bubble-boy couple decided to pull down the balloon and climb inside for some high pitched comedic antics. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that while the occassional balloon of helium only kills a couple thousand brain cells, breathing pure helium for any long duration will kill about 10 billions brain cells rather quickly, and the rest of the body that that brain is attached to.

On a fun note, when you do a search on the Darwin Awards website, there are a lot of submissions that have to do with helium (my favorite of course being that one guy who tied a bunch of helium weather balloons to a lawnchair and ended up violating LAX airspace at 10,000 feet).

In honor of all of these stories I think Darwin should officially designate the second smallest atom, our friend Helium, as the element most dangerous to those that natural selection is already giving hints and winks to.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/04/balloon.deaths.ap/index.html

Submitted on 06/05/2006

Submitted by: Gabriel, BC
Reference: Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times, CNN

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Though we've received dozens of submissions on this story as of the time your submission came up, I really like your write-up (perhaps the best and maybe even the ONLY original write-up we've gotten) and would like Darwin to have a look! Thanks, Gabriel!

Greg said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Yes - your time and efforts appreciated! Thanks! :-)