Stupidest things ever done

[Xantar]

This thread is a companion piece to my "Stupidest things ever said" topic (is anybody still reading that one?). For this update, we open with a few choice stories courtesy of the Darwin Awards.

Note: some of the stories are narrated. That's because they are personal accounts sent to the Darwin Awards website. They were not sent in by me (I've yet to meet someone who kills himself through his own stupidity).

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(1990’s, United States) I heard the following at work in the gun shop. The events described below (if it’s not a legend) occurred in the 1990’s in the southwest.

A small-time hood (about to be even smaller) broke into the home of a World War Two veteran and stole, among other things, the old G.I.'s .45 automatic pistol, which he used in battle in the 1940's. The hoodlum then reported directly to a local convenience store and proceeded to rob the cashier while brandishing his new pistol. The cashier, no dummy, followed orders and handed over the contents of the register.

Our thug took the money and turned to leave, but suddenly decided he didn’t want to leave a witnesses… other than the security camera, that is. He leveled the pistol at the cashier and pulled the trigger.

"CLICK!" went the gun.

At this unexpected development, the puzzled crook looked straight down the barrel of his weapon and uttered the words, "What*the...?"

As it turned out, the WWII veteran had WWII vintage ammunition in his WWII vintage pistol. Priming caps over time are known to lose their "spontaneous" nature, particularly if stored improperly, causing what is known as a hang-fire: The primer smolders into a delayed ignition.

Such was the case here.

Just as the puzzled crook had the barrel pointed squarely at his own eye, the hang-fired primer detonated, sending a half-inch chunk of lead and associated hot combustion gases directly into the felon's skull at 900 feet per second.

The range was less than six inches.
The body could only be identified by fingerprints.

As the story was related to me, the police officer who responded to the original gun burglary was also at the scene of the armed robbery. He picked up the .45 and verified the serial number, then returned it to the WWII veteran.

Case closed.

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(January 2002, Italy) Andreas, 23-year-old ex-bouncer from Italy, was found lying in a pool of blood near a country road. Police initially thought him the victim of sadism. His left leg almost severe by a chainsaw. Copious bleeding. Body drained of blood.

Emergency call to operators who heard only a "death rattle" as Andreas was so weakened by blood loss. He bled to death on the phone.

Sad plight? Not quite.The incredible truth was odder still.

23-year-old Andreas had conspired with his cousin in an insurance scam. Andreas' 29-year-old cousin confessed that he was the assailant, attacking—and killing--the younger man in a planned and "mutually satisfactory" insurance fraud that went badly awry.

Andreas asked his cousin to cut his left leg off with a chainsaw, in order to reap under a million dollars from numerous insurance policies. Permanent disability was all that was required. That and Andreas' knowledge of first aid, to survive their cunning chainsaw incident.

The attack took place near a country lay-by

The cousin sawed at Andreas' leg, below the knee, and severed a major artery in a gambit timed too close for survival. Emergency crews arrived to find Andreas dead and his cousin fled, tossing the chainsaw in a river along the way out of town.

The cousin now languishes in a cell on homicide charges.

A classic case of fate noticing those who buy chain*saws.

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(January 2002) My 18-year-old cousin pulled a wonderful stunt. Davey is not known for his stellar common sense, but he really upstaged himself. This boy is constantly in trouble so it didn't surprise me when I heard the details of his most recent ordeal.

My cousin, during one of his chronic underage drinking sprees, became alarmingly convinced that he had contracted an STD from the wrong kind of girl. He was urinating blood, and it hurt.

But instead of going to a doctor, he comes up with an eradication plan of his own. He goes into the laundry room and picks up a bottle of bleach, thinking, "Hey a disinfectant!"

Davey pours himself a beer/bleach cocktail. He drinks it and wonders why his stomach starts to ache. My Uncle stumbles upon him in a stupor and rushes him to the emergency room. Crisis averted.

In a few years, I'm sure Davey will either kill or sterilize himself!