Honorable mention has gotta be Lawnchair Larry, who rigged helium balloons to his lawnchair, got tracked by norad and finally landed in power lines after accidentally dropping his .22 from the sky (and therefore his ability to timely shoot out his balloons.)
Photo of his rig in below link
https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/lawn-chair-larry/
Edit: no, this was his rig
https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NASM-NASM2022-06684&max=900
Thats not really darwin tho. He was absolutely successful and also survived unharmed. But jeez what a joker !!.
Guy had a ham radio, a sandwich, and beers with him on the trip. No wonder he dropped his pistol. Two pilots spotted him as he got into commercial airspace. So finally he lands and it takes out the entire neighborhood electricity for a couple hours. He finally gets down from the power lines. Is immediately arrested. They go to take his pilots license away. He doesn't have one. Gets fined 1500 instead. Does it again sometime later, spawning a few copy cats to do the same. This was detailed in an old Darwin award email chain write up on the honorable mention category, because, as you said: still alive by the grace of God. The write-up by darwin award staffers was particularly funny if it can be found.
' Does it again sometime later, spawning a few copy cats to do the same. '
And still no-one died - not even from the multiple copy cats. Thats my point. It negates the reason for a Darwin award. Darwin has the implied distinction of causing an individuals death in such an obviously retarded and overtly negligent yet preventable way that even a downs syndrome would baulk at following. These are 'irresponsible fools that lived to tell the story', an polar opposite of a true 'darwin award'.
So did he get down safely? Or drop in the middle of a highway intersection
(post is archived)