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1997 Darwin Award Winner & Some Nominees

Note: These stories and more are found on the Offical Darwin Award page.

Nominee #1:
CAJON PASS, California -- Eight minutes after a California Highway Patrol officer cited a 17-year-old girl for following him too closely, she crashed and died in a high-speed rollover Tuesday.

Britt Mobley of Wildomar in Riverside County had appeared agitated over receiving the citation, said CHP spokesman Oscar Medellin. Investigators said she was going 100 to 110 mph when she lost control of her 1986 Toyota Corolla. The car rolled twice and hit the center medium. Mobley died at the scene of the 9:10 a.m. accident, which occurred in the southbound lanes of Interstate 15 near Kenwood Avenue.

Minutes earlier, a CHP officer had pulled her over near the runaway truck ramp north of Highway 138 to ticket her. Medellin said she had been following the officer "extremely close." The officer had radioed another patrolman and told him she was upset but was OK. She later merged back onto the southbound lanes of the freeway.

Wendy Mair, 42, of Hesperia was headed south near the Kenwood Avenue exit when she looked up in her rearview mirror and saw a car bearing down on her. "She came out of nowhere," Mair said. "She was coming at us. She was not looking straight ahead. She had something in her hand that she seemed to be reading. She looked up, and there we were."

Mobley tried to change lanes but spun out of control.

Mair and her passenger were uninjured, but a window in her Dodge Caravan was broken by rocks kicked up in the crash.

The same officer who had ticketed Mobley pulled up to the crash shortly after it happened. "He was pretty shook up...," Medellin said.

Investigators did not know where Mobley was headed. There were college textbooks and a bookbag in her car.

Medellin said it is not unusual for drivers to cry over getting a ticket, but officers do not let a motorist back on the road if the person is distraught and could be a danger to himself or others. "You handle it on a case-by-case basis."

Nominee #2:
END OF THE LINE: Two thieves tried to steal valuable copper wire from an electricity cable in eastern Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, they did it when it was switched on. The authorities have no one to prosecute, as both were killed by the transmission line's massive 10 kilovolt charge, the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda reported.

One of the thieves will not need to be cremated. The cable conveniently left him as a pile of ashes.

From the Far Eastern Economic Review (www.feer.com) Traveller's tales column, June 30, 1997.
    
Nominee #3:
Sydney, Australia on 11 August 1997

A security guard was collecting money from various small businesses around Darling Harbour, and was walking up an alley when he was assaulted by a thief who hit him over the head with a lump of wood.

The thief then struggled with the guard, who shot him in the chest. Fortunately for the thief, the guard only carried a .38, and with the level of adrenaline in his system he was able to shrug the wound off.

Overpowering the guard, the thief made off with the money and the guards gun, but returned shortly thereafter to steal the guards mobile phone, and to aim the guards gun at the guard and pull the trigger - twice.

Nothing happened.

The thief then made off with the money, the guards mobile phone, and the (non-working?) gun. A minute or so later, a shot was heard, and the thief was found dying on the ground with a bullet wound to the head.

Police examined the .38 and found that one round was discharged, the next two had been struck with the firing pin but failed to go off, and the fourth had been discharged. It is believed that the thief was fooling around with the revolver and shot himself in the head.

The moral of the story is: Never assume, check! One mistake could cost you your life.

1997 Darwin Award Winner:
Fort-Worth Star Telegram 1/2/96

Calcutta, India - A tiger killed one man and mauled another at the Calcutta Zoo yesterday when they tried to put a marigold garland around its neck in a New Year's greeting.

Prakesh Tiwari, the dead man, and Suresh Rai had been drinking before they bought the floral garlands and crossed the moat around the tiger's enclosure, authorities said.

"I was shocked to see the two young men weaving about in front of a tiger with garlands in their hands," said Rakesh Banerjee, who witnessed the attack that triggered panic and a near stampede in the zoo.

The men, both in their 20's, were trying to put the garland on a 13-year old male Royal Bengal tiger named "Shiva" after the Hindu god of destruction.

When Rai threw the garland around Shiva's neck, the tiger attacked him. His friend Tiwari intervened, kicking the tiger in the face. The tiger released Rai, and attacked and killed Tiwari.

"I saw it all; the tiger turned and jumped on the other young man and put its head on the man's neck, and within moments, the man was apparently dead, his head dangling, " Banerjee said.

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