May you die in interesting ways

May you die in interesting ways


C’mere ‘til I tell ya
Daniel Carey

I’VE been thinking about death since reading about the couple in South Africa who were killed by a goods train while having sex on a railway track. Apparently the couple ignored the driver’s shouts as he moved the train into the disused station in Kinross. “They continued with their business,” a police spokesman told The Sowetan newspaper. It was a decision that proved fatal for both of them.
The couple seem certain to feature in the Darwin Awards, ‘a chronicle of enterprising demises’ named after the father of evolution. The Darwin Awards ‘commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it’, according to its website. Previous nominees for this unenviable honour include one Englishman who decided to find out if his jacket was ‘stab proof’ by sticking a knife in his chest, and another who went up in flames after stubbing out a cigarette he smoked minutes after being smeared in paraffin-based cream.
Others to feature in the Darwin Awards’ hall of shame include a South African mugger who scaled a high fence to escape capture, only to find himself in the tiger enclosure of Bloemfontein Zoo; a Croatian whose use of a grenade while cleaning his chimney backfired spectacularly; and an American who refused to go to hospital after being bitten by a cobra, saying: “I’m a man, I can handle it.” He couldn’t, and died a few hours later.
The last incident, which occurred in Pennsylvania in 1997, presumably made the pages of the New York Post. After all, the newspaper which gave us headlines such as ‘She was nice to me, then I kicked her off the roof’ and ‘Headless body in topless bar’ is unlikely to pass up reporting on such a bizarre death.
Many people with an interest in the Darwin Awards also keep an eye on the Stella Awards, inspired by Stella Lieback, who, in 1992, spilled a cup of McDonald’s coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, and ever since, the name ‘Stella Award’ has been used to describe ridiculous lawsuits.
Last year’s runner-up prize went to the family of Robert Hornbeck, who sued a hotel for $10 million after the off-duty soldier got drunk, wandered into the hotel’s service area (passing ‘DANGER’ warning signs), crawled into an air-conditioning unit, and was severely cut when the machinery activated. Unable to care for himself due to his drunkenness, he bled to death.
The winner of the most recent Stella Award was Roy Pearson Jr, a 57-year-old administrative law judge from Washington DC who sued a dry cleaners for $65 million over a lost pair of pants. Representing himself, Judge Pearson cried in court over the loss of his pants, whining that there wasn’t a more compelling case in the District archives. But the Superior Court judge called the case ‘vexatious litigation’, scolded Judge Pearson for his ‘bad faith’, and awarded damages to the dry cleaners. The law isn’t always an ass.