Darwin Award Story from Craigslist....tooo funny

[KevinP73]

I Almost Won A Darwin Award

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Reply to: edited out by Kevin P
Date: Wed Jun 09 08:49:35 2004


Yes, so I almost won a Darwin Award last night. I say almost because, as many of you know, you have to die in an incredibly stupid manner (thereby removing your incredibly stupid genes from the pool) to win one. Since I am obviously alive, I didn’t win.

So you may ask, how did this happen?

I own an incredibly ****ty car with over 400K miles on it. From time to time, parts wear out, wheels fall off, strange odors surface, etc, so I’m often doing maintenance on it myself to save a little money.

The other day the cable that acts as the grounding-wire to my started motor broke off. As many of you know, no starter motor = no ignition (unless of course you have a stick shift and roll start your car like I do). After a cursory search I realized that the washer at the end of the grounding-wire had broken, but with a piece of duct tape, I could temporarily reattach the wire and start my car.

Before crawling under my car to reattach the wire, I wisely (or so I thought) disconnected the negative battery cable to my car. What I didn’t realize was that, while under the car, the elasticity of the battery cable must have pulled the anode back towards the battery, essentially reattaching the cable.

When I went to reattach the grounding-wire (mind you, I’m under my car at this point with no jacks), it grazed the side of the starter motor and caused a short circuit, which caused the starter motor to turn on, which in turn, turned my car on. Seeing as the car was parked in 1st gear, it suddenly began to lurch forward with me underneath it, dragging my along the ground. Worse yet, there’s only about 6 inches of clearance where the differential joint and transmission stick out under the body. Had my head slid under this part of the car, it would have burst my skull like a grape. At this point I remembered thinking to myself, “So this is how it all ends for me.”

THANK GOD, my car only lunged forward about 6 feet before smacking an old crappy pick ‘em-up truck in front of me. The impact jarred the wire loose from the starter motor and my car stalled out with me safely underneath (except for a few scratches and a seriously bruised ego).

Had I actually killed myself, I can only imagine what the local papers would have said: Local Man Runs Self Over. Yup, I think that would have qualified me for a Darwin Award.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Now if you’ll go excuse me, I’m going to see if I can shoot an apple of my own head.




this is in or around The Shallow End of the Gene Pool
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

[Moneyguy1]

All repair manuals suggest neg cable removal. I go a step further. I recommend inserting the end of the cable in a Ziploc or equivalent bag and securing with a tiewrap or a rubber band.

[pwd72s]

Darwin award? I dunno....but this tale taught me that I want to be SURE the battery is disconnected when I do it.

[RickM]

Hmmm, shooting an apple off your own head doesn't impress me as all that hard...well, at least with a pistol.

[singpilot]

You know Rick... I am a visual kinda guy. I know Kevin, and I immediately see that as a picture. Crystal clear.

I had no problem forming the image.

As I write this, Kev is reading it, and LOL.

I'll bet, he posts a pic of this scenario soon.

[KevinP73]

Funny you say that, I've been trying to find a picture I have of a guy commiting suicide with a bow and arrow to his head. Red kneck suicide !!

[john70t]

It doesn't seem that uncommon actually.
I've heard stories about people remote starting their car in gear and getting pinned to the garage wall with two broken legs.
In a garage where I was storing/working on my car, it happened to a nice guy there but luckly/thankfully he escaped permanent injury.

I'm sure there are stories better than those.........

[djmcmath]

I had a friend do this in a bug, actually. It's a real bummer when it happens. My lesson is to make sure the car is in neutral before doing anything that might make the engine turn over. After checking to make sure the tranny's in neutral, check to make sure that the tranny is in neutral. Then check once more, just in case.

Dan

[techweenie]

This smells like urban legend.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't he have had to leave the ignition switch in the 'on' position for this to happen? That seems unlikely to me.

[KevinP73]

Originally posted by techweenie
This smells like urban legend.

He would have had to leave the ignition switch in the 'on' position for this to happen. That seems odd to me.

Oh you forgot... Bush sucks !!

[techweenie]

Kevin, I never forget that!

[speeder]

Yeah, Bush still sucks. But not to worry, he'll be back to drilling dry holes in Texas soon, like in the good old days when he was a harmless oil exploration guy.

My favorite is the story of the guy who sued the gun maker for product defect(?) because he tried to blow his head off and the gun misfired and just gave him a permanent bad haircut or something. Anyone remember that story?

[ronin]

Originally posted by RickM
Hmmm, shooting an apple off your own head doesn't impress me as all that hard...well, at least with a pistol.

ha! add another level of difficulty. try it shooting straight up