This Year's Idiots Awards

In case you haven't received them yet, here are this year's
Idiots Awards - the annual honor given to the person who
improved the "gene pool" the most by killing themselves in
the most extraordinarily stupid way. As always, competition
this year has been keen.

And the candidates this year are . . .

* In Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two
feet of water after squeezing head first through an
18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

* A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned
when he ran,"--accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high
cliff on his daily run.

* Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell
face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was
burglarising.Death was caused when the long flashlight he
had placed in his mouth(to keep his hands free) rammed into the
base of his skull as he hit the floor.

* Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville as he
won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver
loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

HONOURABLE MENTION:

* Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalised in Andover township, NJ,
and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of
dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around 2 AM , the
bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the
window to see what would happen,but apparently failed to
notice the window was closed.

RUNNER UP:

* TACOMA , WA Kerry Bingham had been drinking with
several friends when one of them said they knew a person
who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in
the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated
and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge
at 4:30 AM .
Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered
that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had
continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil
of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was
secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to
the bridge.His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened
and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived
his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two
nearby fishermen.
"All I can say" said Bingham, "is that God was watching
out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation
for it." Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER :

* Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt
(Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22
doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries,
figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm
finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200
pounds of poop!

Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting
to give th ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the
relieved beast unloaded on him.

"The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation
knocked Mr.Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his
head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued
to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted
Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. '
With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung
for atleast an hour before a watchman came along, and during
that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those
freak accidents that proves that
"Sh*t happens!*