Embarrassingly Dumb Ways People Died - Darwin Awards Winners (Part 8)

Despite all the advancements of modern society, people still find ways to fall through the safety nets and put themselves in danger. Some people are so dumb, no amount of health and safety regulations can keep them around past their self-inflicted expiry date. Let's marvel at the unfortunate souls who selected themselves out of the gene pool, winning a posthumous Darwin award in the process.

Macho Man’s Downfall

We all know a guy who cares more about seeming like the manliest man than his own personal safety. But for one unfortunate fellow from Pato Branco, Brazil, wanting to appear tough resulted in the opposite effect, and ultimately, his demise.

When the 48-year-old climbed into bed one night, he felt a sudden twinge of pain on his leg. Pulling back the sheets, he spotted a Brazilian Brown Spider, which, upon being joined in bed uninvited, had bitten him. These little critters might not look as scary as some of our planet’s other arachnids, but their venom packs a seriously painful punch. If left untreated, Brazilian Brown Spider bites can lead to infections and serious health problems.

For this man, though, despite the intense pain, the other symptoms weren’t so obvious at first. Not that he paid his symptoms any mind anyway, as despite his family’s insistence, he refused to get the bite checked out by a doctor. Within a matter of days, however, his body had begun to swell up, his legs became virtually unresponsive, and his kidneys began to fail.

By the time he finally put his ego aside, it was too late. He died in hospital, leaving behind a clear lesson to all macho men: you can outmuscle many things in life, but a venomous spider bite ain’t one of them.

Gnarly Bail, Dude

There’s nothing wrong with being a thrill-seeker, just as long as the thrills you seek aren’t laced with total stupidity. Unfortunately, the thrills this next Darwin Award recipient sought out contained lethal doses of idiocy, far exceeding the government’s daily recommendations of a single spoonful.

While hitting the slopes at Bogus Basin in Idaho, one snowboarder decided the allocated ski areas weren’t exciting enough, and decided to up the thrill-factor in a supremely stupid way. Without taking any precautions to check for traffic, he decided to attempt to jump over the main road leading to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, this particular road happened to be in regular use, but the bird-brained boarder attempted to clear it anyway.

But when the trick proved to be an utter failure, the snowboarder didn’t just have the embarrassment to contend with. He also had the SUV coming directly at him, with no time to react and nowhere to swerve, to worry about. But he didn’t have to worry for long, because he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and the impact the SUV made was so severe, it killed him almost instantly.

Holey Moley

There are many things that can go wrong in a burglary attempt. The homeowners might catch you in the act; there might be an angry Doberman with a taste for burglars waiting for you inside. You might even fall through the ceiling 24 feet to the floor below.

Well, that last one is a little less likely, but it’s exactly what happened to one burglar in Nevada in 2019. While trying to cut himself an entry point into the roof of a hair salon in Carson City, he lost his footing, falling straight into the hole he’d just made.

With the ceiling being over 20 feet high, as he fell, the burglar must’ve been hoping he’d land in the comfort of a barber’s chair rather than on an upturned pair of scissors. But, neither outcome occurred, as instead, he crashed straight down onto the cold, hard floor, and was killed instantly. Needless to say, there are better ways to get a free haircut, and none of them involve cutting holes in ceilings.

Havin’ A Blast

There are many ways a person can annoy their neighbors when living in a small apartment complex. Loud music, annoying pets, and parties are the usual problems, but for an apartment block in Tiraspol, Moldova, one problematic neighbor made a bang that was more than just noisy.

On a quiet afternoon in February 2019, residents of the apartment complex were suddenly met with an almighty boom. As glass exploded out from one apartment window into the street below, the emergency services were called to investigate.

When police arrived, the apartment block’s gas was shut off, as it was initially assumed a gas leak had caused the explosion. But as the police began to piece the mystery together, a gas explosion was quickly ruled out in favor of something much more ridiculous. It turned out, the owner of the apartment in which the explosion had occurred was somewhat of a military enthusiast. He had a large assortment of weapons in his room, including grenades, and had somehow managed to set one off while perusing his collection.

The blast from the hand grenade obliterated his apartment, but miraculously, left the rest of the complex largely untouched. Unsurprisingly, though, the grenade-toting apartment owner himself was very much dead when the police arrived.

Felt Cute, Might Delete Myself

Certain people will go to great lengths nowadays for the perfect Instagram photo opportunity. After all, how are people going to know how much fun their lives are without plastering it all over social media? This mindset is very much real for some folk. And what’s more, desperation for a ‘great pic’ at any cost has forcibly removed a select few from the gene pool in recent years.

One such case happened to a student at Fordham University in New York back in 2019. Late one night, she and her friends had the not-so-bright idea to climb an off-limits clocktower on campus, hoping to snap a few Insta-worthy pics at the top.

But, whether it was the excitement of a photo op, or just the darkness of the evening, during the ascent, the student made a fatal mistake. Somehow, she managed to fall out of an open alcove and over the edge, plummeting to the lower roof of the building. With serious injuries sustained from her fall, she died shortly afterwards.

She did reportedly manage to snap a few pics before falling, but she never even got to share them with the world. Was it worth it? Unless those pics ever get released, we’ll never know for sure. But I’m betting on a firm “no”.

Ride of Your Life

Some ideas are so dumb, even just hearing about them makes you feel slightly less intelligent. One such idea was brought to life in the city of Zevenaar in the Netherlands in June 2020. A young man and his friend, perhaps after watching the televised antics of Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera and Co., decided to tie a shopping cart to a car and go for a ride.

Clearly pulling the short straw, one of them clambered into the cart, while the other took the much less treacherous role of driver. As the engine roared into life, the cart-rider hesitantly stood up in his humble chariot and prepared to feel the wind in his hair.

While he was reportedly able to engage in this unconventional style of surfing for a little while, it wasn’t long before the cart began to lose stability. Before he knew it, the shopping cart tamer was buckaroo’d right off, travelling at a significant speed, and landed in a crumpled heap on the tarmac, dying instantly.

I could never condone partaking in a joyride of this kind, but if you’re dumb enough to insist, at least wear a helmet and protective gear. Because, as this guy learned in the split-second before his annihilation, high speeds, tarmac, and human faces are not a pleasant mix.

Is This Thing Loaded?

In June 2020, an incident of such outrageous stupidity occurred, it would seem more at place in a whacky cartoon than in real life. At a birthday celebration in the town of Shahapur, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, a 28-year-old man decided to take a look through the party host’s belongings.

Finding what was quite obviously a very real revolver and mistaking it for a toy, he jokingly pointed it at himself. Sensing no danger whatsoever, and committed to the gag, he pulled the trigger. As a gunshot cut through the fun atmosphere of the party, guests poured in from other rooms and saw the aftermath. It wasn’t pretty.

The guests were left shocked and disturbed by the incident, and were forced to confront three very important lessons. Firstly, if you own guns, don’t leave them lying around loaded when you throw a party. Secondly, don’t invite people to your party with less than 3 braincells. And thirdly, even if you suspect a gun to be fake, never hold it up to yourself and open fire before you’ve double, triple and quadruple checked with the owner. Treat every gun like it’s loaded. Otherwise, at the very least, you may ruin a perfectly good party. And nobody likes a party pooper.

Rapid Exit

Every once in a while, in the process of accidentally removing themselves from the gene pool in spectacularly embarrassing ways, people actually end up saving lives. For one unlucky man from Somalia, though, saving lives was far from his intention, yet he somehow managed it anyway.

The man in question boarded a commercial flight from Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia on February 2nd, 2016, with diabolical intentions. His plan, it seemed, had been to smuggle a laptop on board which was fitted with a bomb, and detonate it mid-flight, bringing the plane crashing down.

He succeeded in getting the bomb past security, and shortly after take-off, prepared for everyone on board’s fiery demise. The terrorist detonated his device, and it exploded according to plan. But, in a shocking and, admittedly, kind of hilarious turn of events, he blew a hole in the side of the plane right next to him, which sucked him straight out into the open air.

While a couple of other people were injured, no passengers died, and the plane turned around and landed safely back at the airport. All the while, the world’s unluckiest terrorist was treated to a nice flight of his own straight down to the ground at terminal velocity. What was left of him was later scraped off the road near Mogadishu, in about as dignified an ending as he deserved.

Hammer Time

When it doubt, hit it with a hammer. That’s the approach one man from the commune of Bălţaţi in Romania seemed to take to life. At least, it’s the approach he took when investigating a mysterious metal object he found while exploring the fields near his home.

As you can hopefully understand, a hammer is far from the perfect investigative tool for such a purpose. But, unfortunately, not everyone is fortunate to have the baseline level of common sense you and I take for granted. The metal object in question was a rusty cylinder that looked something like the one in the image below, which even at first glance should’ve begun to ring a few alarm bells in his head.

But those alarm bells remained silent, and the air was soon filled with other noises instead. First, the sound of metal on metal, as he took the object back to his home workshop and gave it an investigatory whack with his hammer. Then, the sound of an explosion. Because the object he’d found and proceeded to hammer was a very old, but still very much active, bombshell from a past battle on Romanian soil.

With all the grace and decorum of someone trying to tie their shoes with a jackhammer, the man was blown to smithereens in the most literal sense of the phrase. He wasn’t a bright spark in life, but he certainly was in death.

Light Refreshment

What’s your favorite food? Pizza? Pasta? Sushi? Barbeque? Whatever yours is, I’m sure you take great pleasure in eating it. And why wouldn’t you? Food is great. But it’s more than that; it’s essential for our continued survival. Most people never forget this fact of life. But one Swiss woman chose to simply ignore it, when she ventured forth on an incredibly questionable spiritual journey back in 2011.

After watching a documentary about an Indian guru who allegedly survived for 70 years consuming no food, living off sunlight alone, the woman decided to try her hand at the challenge. You might be thinking, “but what if the documentary was lying?”, and you’d be right to do so, because that tale was almost certainly little more than a myth. Or, at the very least, an exaggeration, as the whole idea goes against every shred of evidence biological science presents us with.

But what does science matter when you have faith, right? That’s the viewpoint this woman adopted, and she decided to stop eating and drinking altogether. When that proved too tough, she began drinking water again, but continued to resist food. After a few weeks of the practice, she was found in her apartment, dead of starvation.

It shouldn’t need to be said, but no matter how much you believe otherwise, the human body needs food to keep living. Once your body runs out of food, it begins digesting itself. Eventually, this stops the vital organs from functioning, and death soon follows. If there’s a legitimate way to get around it, the scientific world is yet to see compelling evidence of it. One thing that is certain, though, is that this Swiss woman’s death was a failed attempt to make a somewhat pointless statement.

Cassowary Attacks Florida Man

Despite what you might believe, dinosaurs still exist. Not in the form of giant T-Rexes, granted, though their current forms can be just as scary. Case in point: this bizarre creature, known as a cassowary.

Found across Indonesia and north-eastern Australia, it’s one of the largest birds on earth, reaching up to 6ft tall, and weighing as much as 130lbs. If you don’t believe my dinosaur claim, just check out their claws.

Scary, right? Well, it’s those 4-inch-long claws that make up the focal point of this next tale of one man’s unfortunate, yet avoidable, demise. While cassowaries are certainly fascinating to look at, they’re known for being incredibly territorial.

This is something one Florida man should’ve been aware of, considering he bred them on his property near Gainesville. But, for reasons unknown, one day the breeder let his guard down while walking in the enclosure housing one of his cassowaries. In a stroke of misfortune, he fell, and seeing an opportunity to attack, the cassowary leapt forth with those dagger-like claws.

Had the breeder been smart like the guy in the image below, he would’ve taken something into the enclosure to put between the bird and himself in the event of an attack. Anything to absorb some of the powerful kick’s impact, and most importantly, keep those claws away from his vulnerable body would’ve made all the difference.

But, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The bird overpowered the unlucky breeder, and kicked him to death. It’s certainly a tragedy, and proves that, around dangerous animals, letting your guard down even once can be a death sentence. But on the other hand, one would argue that ‘killed by a living dinosaur’ is a pretty cool thing to have on your gravestone.

Digging An Early Grave

You don’t need to look far on the internet to see examples of people with dangerous jobs throwing all safety measures to the wind. Like the guy in the image below, who successfully completed his digging unharmed in spite of his very unstable-looking DIY support beams.

Or the genius below, whose choice of propping tools are one sudden movement away from crumbling like breadsticks with a side of crushed human for dipping.

Not everyone is so lucky, however, and it turns out the most dangerous type of support beam is none at all. That was precisely the construction style chosen by one man in 2018 when he decided to dig a tunnel into a sand dune at a beach in Saint Augustine, Florida. He wormed his way several feet into the side of the sand dune, and seemed to be having fun, until his unsupported, makeshift tunnel suddenly collapsed on him.

The collapse covered him in several feet of sand, suffocating him, and the sudden shock triggered a fatal heart attack, finishing him off. And that, folks, is why even these types of support beams are better than none at all when it comes to digging yourself out of, or into, trouble.

Reptile Road Trip

No matter how many people fall victim to agonizing and often fatal bites, people just don’t seem to get the message to not mess with snakes. Like the bizarre Indian trend of snapping selfies with cobras, or this Florida man, whose decision to kiss a venomous water moccasin temporarily turned his face into a marshmallow.

But even those folks are basically Einstein-level geniuses compared to one man from the Kuala Langat District of Malaysia, who took a wild python for a motorcycle ride in January 2018. Having passed the 11ft-long reptile on his return from work, he grabbed a pair of gloves and a sickle from home before returning to catch it.

While his motivations for doing so remain unclear, he picked up the snake, holding it by its head to avoid being bitten, and hopped back on his motorbike. Shortly after beginning their road trip, however, the snake began coiling around its chauffeur. Before long, it had constricted enough to pull him off his bike, and despite passers-by attempting to pull him free, the python had soon squeezed all the life out of him.

So, if you ever take a reptile on a road trip, take it in a nice car. Because if this story is anything to go by, pythons really seem to hate riding motorbikes.

If you were amazed at these dumb ways people died, you might want to check out our entire Darwin Awards Series. Thanks for reading!