1999 Darwin's Award

Darwin Awards goes to the stupidest possible death (or near death) by an individual, thus improving the overall gene pool.
  And now for the top nominees for 1999.......
NOMINEE No. 1 [San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man, using a Shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

NOMINEE No. 2 [Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, a mechanic of Alamo, Michigan, was killed as he was trying to repair what police described as a "farm-type truck" Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of the troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft."

NOMINEE No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47 accidentally shot himself to death in Newton, N.C. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone, but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

NOMINEE No. 4: [UPI, Toronto]: Police said a lawyer, demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper, crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawers, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.

NOMINEE No. 5: Michael Anderson Godwin made news posthumously. He spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair for a murder conviction before successfully having his sentence reduced to life imprisonment. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit a wire and was electrocuted.

NOMINEE No. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]: A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion. A Jay County man, using a lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader, was killed when the weapon discharged in his face. Sheriff investigators said Gregory David Pryor died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home while cleaning a 54-caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

NOMINEE No. 7: [AP, St. Louis]: Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently behaving in a disorderly fashion in a St. Louis market, when the clerk threatened to call the police. Pueblo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it. Police found him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat after he had choked to death.

NOMINEE No. 8: [Unknown]: Poacher Marino Malerba shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging cliff and was killed instantly when the dead stag fell on him.

NOMINEE No. 9: [Associated Press, Kincaid, W. VA]: Blasting Cap Explodes in Man's Mouth at Party. A man at a party popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering and explosion that blew off his lips, teeth and tongue, State Police said. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during a party.