The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction (22 page)

 

 

2009 | This moment of blissfully pure and unadulterated stupidity happened while I was managing a successful franchise exhaust shop a few years back. I had won a contract to build custom exhausts on a series of hot rods. Due to the exacting workmanship required, I did these jobs after hours when I wasn’t distracted by customers and staff.

Tired and a bit bored one evening, I took a break, swigged some soda, and set the Coke can down on the pipe rack. It fell neatly into a length of exhaust pipe. This raised some intriguing possibilities. I wondered if a small acetylene explosion would launch a can from the pipe. As it happened, an acetylene set was ready to hand, and I proceeded unimpeded with my experiment.

I welded a plate over one end of the tube, and bored a small hole in the side, just above the plate. I dropped an empty can down the pipe and introduced some acetylene and oxygen though the hole. Test #1 went well. My trusty Zippo ignited the gas and there was a loud pop—but the can launched a measly ten feet in the air.

Being a perfectionist, I knew I could do better. The empty can was slightly smaller than the three-inch pipe, and much could be gained by wrapping the can to fit the pipe. Test #2 was better. The pop was louder, and the can launched upward with enough force to dent the tin roof of the building.

At this point I realized that I could do some damage, so I moved my enterprise out back behind the shop before proceeding with Test #3. I carefully wrapped a full Coke can with a rag, oiled to reduce friction. I rammed it hard down the pipe, but could only get it down about one foot. I aimed the tube straight up (to maximize altitude) and filled the three remaining feet with oxygen and acetylene. I must confess that I experienced a brief flash of doubt, but I overcame it, knelt down a careful eighteen inches from the pipe, and lit the mortar.

The result was considerably more violent than the prior launches.

An extremely loud explosion and a searing flash of heat knocked me over. I caught a brief glimpse of a burning projectile disappearing at high velocity into the night sky. The recoil of the launch had driven the tube a foot into the ground, and the open end of the pipe sported a distinct bell shape. Luckily the pipe had held, and had not blown up in my face. Stunned, I staggered back into the shop and knocked over a six-foot length of exhaust pipe. Instead of the usual crash, I heard nothing but a high-pitched buzzing.

Break time was over! I carried on working.

Half an hour later I was surprised by two cops tapping me on the shoulder. They were a wee bit agitated, as they had been addressing me for a while and thought I was ignoring them. After much shouting and several written messages, it became apparent that they were investigating a loud explosion heard behind the twenty-thousand-liter propane tank at the gas station next door. The tank was ten feet away from my test site, behind a wooden fence!

The gas station had, of course, been evacuated. Due to my impaired hearing, I had failed to notice the four fire engines outside and was blissfully unaware of the mayhem going on next door. Naturally enough, I denied any knowledge, but my burned and deaf state didn’t help my case. Then a curious cop followed the oxy-acetylene hoses outside . . .

The incident cost me a severe telling-off by the cops and permanent hearing issues, but I count myself lucky. I must confess, though, sometimes I sit back and wonder . . . What was I thinking?

And where did that Coke can end up?

 

Reference: Anonymous

 

“Admit it, the thought would cross
your
mind, too.”

“Still working on that spud gun. Just upping the ante . . .”

“Remember acetylene + oxygen in balloons?”

13 OCTOBER 2008, GERMANY One evening, a forty-two-year-old man fixed his punctured air mattress with a tire repair spray that, like all solvent-based aerosols, is flammable. Furthermore, he repaired the puncture while keeping the windows in his loft apartment tightly closed. The next morning, this airhead lit a smoke just before he opened the valve to deflate the air mattress. The resulting explosion wrecked most of the furnishings, part of the roof, and blew a window from the wall. The damage was so severe that a structural engineer condemned the flat! Narrowly missing a full-blown Darwin Award, our hero was taken to a burn-care unit and managed to recover from the brutal “attack” by his mattress.

Reference:
presseportal.de

 

 

 

 

5 JULY 2006, OHIO | I was the lucky orthopedics resident on call the night of July 4th. Midnight passed quietly but as dawn broke the next morning, the telephone rang. A fellow was in the trauma unit suffering partial amputation of a finger due to an explosion. I figured that this was a typical firecracker injury and headed over to attend the patient.

I found a gentleman peppered with thousands of black spots—gunpowder embedded in his face, chest, and arms. His left middle finger was essentially missing, and the space between his right thumb and index finger split wide open. His airway was intubated and he also had a chest tube—far more intervention than would be required for a routine firecracker injury.

The man’s wife told me what had happened in plain words.

Hubby had built a small cannon
in order to celebrate Independence Day. He and his lady both had been drinking heavily throughout the evening. When they regained consciousness the next morning, the gentleman figured he might as well finish off the unused gunpowder. He packed his homemade howitzer, using a cutoff broomstick.

While packing the cannon he was also sucking on a cigarette. Lo and behold, the ash fell and ignited the powder. The broomstick fired into his chest, ripping through his hands en route as hot gunpowder sprayed out of the cannon.