Darwin Award Averted
Why do we have a sneaking suspicion alcohol may have been involved?
A 27-year-old Joliet woman suffered second-degree burns after using a cigarette lighter to see how much gas was in the can she was filling.
Police reports say it was about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday when the woman drove to the 7-Eleven at 1609 E. Cass St. in Joliet in a yellow 1970 Chevrolet.
"(The woman) was filling up a gas can, which was sitting on the passenger seat of the car. (She) then used a lighter to use as a light to observe how full the can was," police said.
The can ignited from the lighter's flame and the resulting explosion also set the vehicle's interior ablaze.
We recall the story of a south side citizen lying smoldering in an alley when police arrived. He was alive, barely. His momma told the officers he was trying to run an illegal hookup into the house from the utility pole because the electricity had been shut off for nonpayment of bills. Then she told the officers his brother had died the year before trying to do the exact same thing.
Quick! Tell your best near-Darwin story. Names should be removed to protect the idiotic.
Quick! Tell your best near-Darwin story. Names should be removed to protect the idiotic.
Labels: silly people
posted by SCC at 12:01 AM
32 Comments:
I joined the department.
I win.
Thanks ladies and gents you're a great audience.
Circa early 90's, possibly '92 or '93. Three generations of West Side pooches are working in concert, scaling a utility pole in the 800 block of North Christiana in an attempt to take possession of some ever-elusive, yet highly sought after copper.
If memory serves me correctly, the youngest went up the pole first, promptly getting fried and catching on fire while still perched atop the post. Up went his Pops in a futile attempt to save him, only to succumb to the identical fate. Grand Pappy, being the street-savvy career criminal and less than athletic, wisely declined any type of rescue attempt, opting instead to dial 911.
End result: A portion of two generations of mutts eliminated by "Edison's Medicine". CFD personnel on scene likened the removal of the two charred carcasses via fiberglass poles to prying leeches off an open wound.
About the only REALLY sad thing regarding this tale is that the copper relating the first-hand account of this story was on the car we sent to get more beer to freshen the dwindling supply at an in-progress "Albany Inn". Our beer run arrived eventually. The suds were no longer ice cold, but all present toasted the demise of two Darwin Award recipients regardless.
Phat boy annointed lemon head as the chief of ocd. Muscle head annointed an bigger idiot as the chief of ocd.
To Hell with the stupid bitch. I just hope that the "yellow 1970 Chevrolet" that got burned-up wasn't a Butternut Yellow Chevelle SS or a Sunflower Yellow 'Vette.
It's much more palatable to see some meth-addicted hilljack chick get cooked instead of a classic American muscle car.
Guns and alcohol don't mix!
About 15 years ago. New Years Eve. The stroke of midnight. A well dressed, 30ish, 015th District resident went out in the alley behind his house to celebrate and fire off a few rounds from his shotgun. First shot misfires.
Dude apparently decides that he'll be able to figure out why the gun didn't go off if he looks down the barrel when he pulls the trigger. This time, it works. Bye-bye, Dude!
how about the guy who asked his son to drop an extension cord down from the third floor to the basement which was flooded in an attempt to get a pump working--- sadly, papa got fried----
about a dozen years ago a building exploded in 014.supposedly the owner of the building sent a guy to torch it. the guy poured gas into a heating duct and the furnace kicked on creating an explosion. the bad guy got the worst of it. the blast burned his face,chest, arms and his pee-pee. we arrived and the guy/clothes burned off was trying to escape blindly running down an alley bouncing off garages like a pinball machine. called for an ambulance. guy started to cuff him and the skin came off his arm. ========= a guy years ago climbed a big fence to do a burglary by fullerton and kedzie. he tossed a t v over the fence. he lost his balance and fell on the spikes butt first while climbing over. he was just sitting there impalled on the fence. he was carefully taken down by cfd. i guess climbing a fence with spikes can be a real pain in the ass.
Anyone who has ever gone around, or tried to go around a lowered railroad crossing gate gets my vote.
People who do that are prone to doing other dumb shit too.
If woman would only watch The Three Stooges they would know that such practices are a bad idea.
This one turned into a true Darwin Award winner. This guy lived in the Clearing neighborhood in the 90's and his job was always going around scraping metal. In his travels, he obtained an aluminum gas grill propane tank that he wanted to scrap. The scrap yard will only take a gas cylinder if the top and valve are completely cut off.
So the dude starts drilling holes in the top of the tank so he can get an opening large enough for a saw-zall to cut the top off.
Well, the Darwin candidate failed to drain the tank and when he started drilling the first hole, the drill threw a spark into the partially filled tank. The propane tank erupted into a flame thrower spewing molten aluminum into the face and chest of the unsuspecting honoree.
Here's another one that was in the news back in the late 80's. Some guy in Calumet Park had obtained the large professional fireworks mortars. Him and a couple of buddies with beer cooler in hand set-up a a cast iron mortar tube in a vacant lot. After several frosty beverages and firing several mortars, the soon to be Darwin Award honoree, dropped the mortar in fuse first.
In effort to see where the fuse was in the tube, the DA Honoree leaned his head over the mortar tube using a burning flare as his trusty flashlight. Needless to say, as the flare burned brightly over the mortar tube, burning sulfur dripped from the flare right onto the firework mortar.
Ignition was immediate and the mortar quickly separated the honoree's head from the honoree's body.
Moral of the story.... alcohol, fireworks and stupidity is a recipe for disaster.
When I was a patrolman in 024 we got a call of a Robbery in progress. On the way to the scene, the dispatcher relayed that she was on the phone with the victim who was chasing the "offender" and giving the locations out to the dispatcher. After, what seemed like a ten minute long goose chase, we finally caught up with the victim, a 20-year-old Loyola student, who said that the crack-ho over there "took" $40 from him.
We grabbed said crack-ho who said that the student "gave her the $40".
"Is this true?", we asked. College puke went on to explain that he did, in fact, give $40 to the crack-ho under the pretense that she would use the money to take a cab to the hospital because she was sick. The college puke could not believe it when the crack-ho instead used the money to purchase alcohol and crack!
"So what do you want US to do?", we asked.
"I want her arrested!", he yelled.
We told him that the $40 dollars he lost today would be worth more someday than the $40K he spent on his bullshit education.....
A drunk fell asleep (passed out) on his couch in an apartment on Western Ave. He was smoking a cigarette when he passed out. The cigarette fell right there between his legs on the couch and started to smolder a long slow fire right there, between his legs.
A citizen notices smoke coming from the window some time later. The CFD arrives and finds our hero still passed out with the couch on fire and his entire reproductive external soft tissue burned off. Completely burned off.
He lived but he permanently removed his genes from pollution of any future generation. Now he has a good story to tell and a real reason to drink.
No one died here, but they were incredibly stupid nonetheless.
One summer in 018, we had a woman that used to frequent the cocktail lounges in a couple of the 4 star hotels on the Gold Coast. She was sooo HOT, (a former Miss Dallas, as I recall), that she could take a man's breath away. She'd wait around until some high-roller would get stinking drunk and hit on her. Then, teasing and rubbing him, she'd tell 'em she was an escort, and for $1000 they could skip all the B S, and go straight up to his room for an INCREDIBLE f*ck session.
Occassionally, she'd connect with some rich but dumb drunk that would hand over his cash. She'd tell him the cops knew her, so they couldn't go up to his room together. Either she could go up first and greet him naked at the door, or he could go up first and she'd follow, his choice. Once they separated, she just left the hotel, and he was $1000 poorer but hopefully wiser.
Don't know how many times she succeeded since the dumb victims didn't call the Police to point out how really stupid they were. I met her once, though, when a guy paid her and went up to shower before she came up. In his $1000 dollar fantasy, she was supposed to come into his room, get naked and climb in the shower with him. When she didn't show up, the guy went back downstairs and caught her just as she was leaving the bar and started a disturbance requiring the Police. Turns out, as soon as drunk #1 pays her and leaves to wait for her in the shower, drunk # 2 came and hit on her, so she took a chance on converting a double steal!
The guy with the shower fantasy almost got locked up for drunken stupidity to the Police, but then denied anything had happened, as did the Beauty Queen. Drunk # 2 beat feet as soon as he saw the uniforms.
She had never been arrested before and maybe this one was too close for comfort. After she refused to marry me, I never saw her again!
Early 2000's old boy was running from the police in 024 in the jungle when, in an attempt to escape, he scaled a large cement wall surrounding an Evanston cemetary. It was at approximately 2200-2300hrs when it happened so it was pitch black. After (eventually) getting over the wall we searched for dude with no luck...until old boy lit up his cigarette to celebrate his victory eluding the police.
Needless to say he was soon apprehended resting against a gravestone.
Remember the sergeant in 04 who order the P.O. to pick up the downed wire? The P.O. refused to do it, so the sergeant said "This isn't a live wire" and proceeded to pick it up. Needless to say he spent some time in the hospital. Poor KB! humbled and retired now. Former FTO.
Had some moron once whose car was stuck in an icy rut. He tried rocking it forward and back, to no avail. He got a couple brain surgeons to help try and push him out but that didn't work either. Next, while the car was in gear, he propped his snow brush between the drivers seat and the gas pedal to keep the wheels turning while he got out to help the surgeons push. He figured they were so close to getting unstuck that one more guy pushing would do the trick. Still no luck.
Sitting on a slight incline, they decided to push the car backwards instead of forward. Sure enough, after moving to the front of the vehicle and rocking the car back a couple of times, they freed the wheels from the ice and the tires hit solid ground. This caused the car to immediately lurch forward directly at them and jump the curb before hitting a building. One of the surgeons was able to jump out of the way and is still practicing today. The other surgeon had his leg crushed and now practices with a pronounced hitch in his step.
Alas, the car owner himself will never be the same. He was dragged under the runaway vehicle, leaving most of his back and buttocks sitting back by the curb. He did survive, as a quadriplegic, but will never drive again.
I guess we'll always have a job since ya can't cure stupid. You chase em and bring em to me. What have I been thinking?
I remember Albany Inn. Those days are long gone.
old retired guy
To 8/29/2009 08:18:00 AM
...wrecked him? Damn near killed him!
I remember a winter year ago when a guy in the Deuce was using a lighter to de-ice a fuel line in his old Buick. I stopped the car, and asked him, as he laid under the car, why he just didn't go to the store and buy a $1.99 bottle of "Heet" to de-ice his fuel line. As using a bottle of "Heet" would be much safer than using an open flame around a car's fuel line. He shrugged his shoulders and said he's done this for years, and he's never had an accident. I leave the scene, and then there's a call a few minutes later of a man who was severly burned after his car caught fire while he was underneath it trying to thaw a fuel line.
Anonymous said...
I remember a winter year ago when a guy in the Deuce was using a lighter to de-ice a fuel line in his old Buick. I stopped the car, and asked him, as he laid under the car, why he just didn't go to the store and buy a $1.99 bottle of "Heet" to de-ice his fuel line. As using a bottle of "Heet" would be much safer than using an open flame around a car's fuel line. He shrugged his shoulders and said he's done this for years, and he's never had an accident. I leave the scene, and then there's a call a few minutes later of a man who was severly burned after his car caught fire while he was underneath it trying to thaw a fuel line.
8/29/2009 10:41:00 PM
Surprised the idiot did not file a lawsuit against, you and the city, for not stopping his idiocy.
Some very good ones on here.
How about the kids in Cabrini who found a hole protruding from the recently bulldozed ground on Larabee, circa 1999ish, and decided to see what it was.
They began dropping lit matches down the hole, until kaboom. The hole was the old fueling pipe to an underground gasoline tank. There used to be a gas station on the site.
I once got a call of a man with a severed arm in 024. I went and it was bonified. Except it wasn't severed, it was chopped up and was mingled in with the mulch he was making with his Sears mulcher/brush chopper, you know, the kind with the hopper on top that says "Keep Hands Clear of Blades."
His brush got hung up in the mulcher and the gas engine was bogging down. So our guy sticks his hand in there and was successful in clearing out the clog.
He was just standing there holding his arm when I arrived, looking at the stump of white bone that used to have a hand attached. He became a left hander that afternoon.
"Albany Inn" thanks for the memories. Was working the desk in 011 when I took a call from an irate female. She was demanding to know the address of the Albany Inn to use in divorce proceedings against her PO husband. I told her that I heard of it, but did not know the exact address. I bet it's somewhere on Albany street. God bless Fillmore and keep the Officers safe. Retired and enjoying it.
Time for a "Darwin" reality check.
Unlike 50 years ago, a growing number of most American adults are simply varying degrees of stupid. It's the "dumbing down" of a once great nation. The USA passed the moron "tipping point" years ago and will only get worse.
Generally, the brightest people in the world are Asians and Ashkenazi Jews.
God help us!
How about my liberal female teacher friend who was all about Obama last year.
This year she can't understand why Obama is doing the things he is doing.
LMAO!!!
guy is in the ER at st elizabeths. says he was drinking with his ''buddy'' and passed out. guy wakes up with horrible pain in his ass and goes to hospital. dr. examines him and finds a candle stuck in his rectum.
The best Darwin award winner in local history, to the best of my recollection, was the guy from Lombard who, while setting off professional grade fireworks in an Addison neighborhood, stuck his head over the mortar tube.
When you're mistakes are this big, the pain only lasts for a second.
"guy is in the ER at st elizabeths. says he was drinking with his ''buddy'' and passed out. guy wakes up with horrible pain in his ass and goes to hospital. dr. examines him and finds a candle stuck in his rectum.
8/30/2009 10:34:00 PM"
Shoulda paid his electric bill.
"When you're mistakes are this big, the pain only lasts for a second.
8/31/2009 06:00:00 PM"
If that.
There was this idiot in 019 years ago that tried to burglarize a restaurant by climbing down the chimney. Well, unSt. Nick got stuck in the flu (mustn't have had these in the old days), the morning crew comes in, turns up the heat, and yeah, we answer a call of a man on fire in a wall!
3rd degree burns on 60% of his body. Died at Ravenswood two days laeter. Hopefully, he never donated his sperm anywhere or in anyone!
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