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Darwin Awards
2006 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
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Bored squadie's

2006 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

This is a true story back when I was a young trooper. I had left out any names to save our embarrassment and any awkward questions.

While on annual camp on Salisbury plain with the TA back in 1991, the troop were in a hide waiting for the next phase of the exercise to begin. I and two friends found an unexploded 81 mm mortar bomb. Been bored squadie's we thought it would be a good idea to see if we could get this bomb to explode. After a brief discussion on how to do this, we decided that the best way of getting this to happen was to throw the said bomb as high as we could and let it hit the ground. We did this for about a dozen times before we got bored again and went to get a brew and something to eat.

Looking back on this now I think how lucky we were, it could had been a practice round but I can not remember there been any blue on it (blue denotes practice or to put this an other way no explosive content in it). If this had gone off we would had been killed

Submitted on 11/14/2006

Submitted by: Cpl Stu
Reference: Personal account

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

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>> Moderator Scores <<

Graham said:
Neutral: Personal Account
Yikes! Makes me glad we have a Navy, Stu. Jokes aside, this could have been a fatal accident, with NO DA as others would have been injured.

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
As a former Naval Officer and current Nat'l Guard Bandsman (where we cause more damage with our instruments than with explosives), I always appreciate such stories. I particularly like the simple, Laurel-and-Hardyesque method you devised to see if it would explode! A brief but amusing PA! Thanks, Corporal!

Jack said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Considering that the term "we" was used, I'd have awarded a DA to the lot. Once the round has been fired, the fuze is armed and highly sensitive to disturbance. This is why EOD gets hazardous duty pay... Thanks for the submission, Cpl Stu, but next time, call the R.E. EOD! Ubique (and all that).

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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