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The 2000 Darwin Award Wannabes


A Jacksonville, Florida woman recently had to summon emergency help after dragging her husband down the street behind their pickup truck. Chief Petty Officer Roman Styles, U.S. Coast Guard Station Jacksonville, was treated and released with a slight concussion and scrapes and bruises. It seems that Styles decided to repair damaged shingles on his house himself, instead of paying a contractor to do it for him. Prior to climbing up on his steep roof, Officer Styles tied a safety rope to the trailer hitch of his truck. Once on the peak of his roof he secured the other end of the line around his waist. He then slid over the top of the roof to repair the shingles. As luck would have it, right after he started to work, his teenage son called for a ride home from a Boy Scout trip. Jane Styles yelled to her husband she’d be right back and pulled away. “I didn’t see the rope,” Mrs. Styles said, “until I saw it in the rear-view mirror. By then I was half-way down the street.” Bill Schlimm, a next door neighbor, said, “I’ll never forget the look on Roman’s face as he came sailing over the peak of that house. If it hadn’t been for that tall cedar tree he would have been really hurt.”


A would-be shoplifter in London attempted to steal two lobsters. The ingenious felon stuffed the lobsters into his trousers and headed for the door of the supermarket. Near the exit, our larcenous Londoner doubled over in excruciating pain and lay on the floor screaming. It seems that the lobster’s claws were not tied down and one of the tasty crustaceans decided to have the thief’s family jewels for lunch. The paramedics were called in to remove the carnivorous crustacean from the very sensitive portion of this thief’s anatomy. After they stopped laughing, a pair of pliers successfully accomplished the removal much to the relief of our suffering suspect. No information was available on the extent of the member’s (sic) injuries or his future fatherhood potential.


This page was last updated January 1, 2004.