Darwin Awards

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

Here's one of the most recent stories:

Chemistry Went To Her Head
(2008 Darwin Award Nominee)
(2 February 2008, Bulgaria)

It was a cold but sunny February afternoon.
Lidia, a biology teacher from Sofia, was driving home from a memorial service accompanied by her husband and a friend.
Suddenly the vehicle stopped.
Bystanders saw all three occupants dash from the car to a nearby manhole, and start pouring down liquids and powders from various bottles and jars.
Apparently, Lidia had been performing chemistry experiments in her free time, and had some leftover noxious chemicals.
It is still not entirely clear what the chemicals were, but two of the bottles were labelled diethyl ether and methanol, both highly flammable substances.
The former is also used as a sedative, so one explanation for their actions is that they felt dizzy from the ether vapors, and thought it was a good idea to pour them in the sewer.
As it turns out, a good idea it definitely was not.
The cocktail of flammable substances in the enclosed space of the sewer caused an explosion so powerful that it launched the manhole cover into the air, decapitating the (briefly) surprised Lidia.
Left without a head on her shoulders, she decided it was time to kick the bucket.
The other two people were not left unharmed, but were alive.
They were taken to the hospital with burns on their faces.
It appears unlikely that they will regain their eyesight, but hopefully are able to speak well enough to tell their children that tossing random chemicals down the drain is not as wise as it might at first appear.

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