Enron Mail

From:jon.trevelise@enron.com
To:tracy.geaccone@enron.com, nancy.carpenter@enron.com, exec.jones@enron.com
Subject:Darwin Awards
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Wed, 24 Oct 2001 07:44:26 -0700 (PDT)

Are these Enron employees?
----- Forwarded by Jon Trevelise/Houston/Eott on 10/24/2001 09:44 AM -----


Robin Border 10/24/2001 08:28 AM To: Lance Nash/Houston/Eott@Eott, Joe Richards/Houston/Eott@Eott, Jon Trevelise/Houston/Eott@Eott, Molly Sample/Houston/Eott@Eott, Susan Ralph/Houston/Eott@Eott cc: Subject: Darwin Awards


<It's that time again..... They are finally out again.
<
<You all know about the Darwin Awards - It's an annual honor given to
<the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing
<themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. Last year's winner
<was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled over on
<top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.
<
<And the nominees are:
<
<9. A young Canadian man, searching for a way of getting drunk
<cheaply, because he had no money with which to buy alcohol, mixed
<gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill,
<and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. This resulting
<explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his
<sister.
<
<8. A 34-year-old white male found dead in the basement of his home
<died of suffocation, according to police. He was approximately 6'2"
<tall and weighed 225 pounds. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white
<bra, black and white saddle shoes, and a woman's wig. It appeared
<that he was trying to create a schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also
<wearing a military gas mask that had the filter canister removed and
<a rubber hose attached in its place. The other end of the hose was
<connected to one end of a hollow wooden tube approx. 12" long and 3"
<in diameter. The tube's other end was inserted into his rectum for
<reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation. Police found
<the task of explaining the circumstances of his death to his family
<very awkward.
<
<7. Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low
<altitude when another plane approached. It appears that they decided
<to moon the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of their
<own aircraft and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage
<with their pants around their ankles.
<
<6. A police officer in Ohio responded to a 911 call. She had no
<details before arriving, except that someone had reported that his
<father was not breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man
<face down on the couch naked. When she rolled him over to check for a
<pulse and to start CPR, she noticed burn marks around his genitals.
<After the ambulance arrived and removed the man - who was declared
<dead on arrival at the hospital - the police made a closer inspection
<of the couch, and noticed that the man had made a hole between the
<cushions. Upon flipping the couch over, they discovered what had
<caused his death. Apparently, the man had a habit of putting his penis
<between the cushions, down into the hole and between two electrical
<sanders (with the sandpaper removed, for obvious reasons).
<According to the story, after his orgasm the discharge shorted out
<one of the sanders, electrocuting him.
<
<5. A 27-year-old French woman lost control of her car on a highway
<near Marseilles and crashed into a tree, seriously injuring her
<passenger and killing herself. As a commonplace road accident, this
<would not have qualified for a Darwin nomination, were it not for the
<fact that the driver's attention had been distracted by her Tamagotchi
<key ring, which had started urgently beeping for food as she drove
<along. In an attempt to press the correct buttons to save the
<Tamagotchi's life, the woman lost her own.
<
<4. A 22-year-old Reston, VA, man was found dead after he tried to
<use octopus straps to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle.
<Fairfax County police said Eric Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a
<bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot,
<anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped
<and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said
<investigators think Barcia was alone because his car was found
<nearby.
<"The length of the cord that he had assembled was greater than the
<distance between the trestle and the ground," Carmichael said. Police
<say the apparent cause of death was "Major trauma."
<
<3. A man in Alabama died from rattlesnake bites. It seems that he
<and a friend were playing a game of catch, using the rattlesnake as a
<ball. The friend, no doubt a future Darwin Awards candidate, was
<hospitalized.
<
<2. Employees in a medium-sized warehouse in west Texas noticed the
<smell of a gas leak. Sensibly, management evacuated the building
<extinguishing all potential sources of ignition; lights, power, etc.
<After the building had been evacuated, two technicians from the gas
<company were dispatched. Upon entering the building, they found they
<had difficulty navigating in the dark. To their frustration, none of
<the lights worked.
<Witnesses later described the sight of one of the technicians
<reaching into his pocket and retrieving an object that resembled a
<cigarette lighter. Upon operation of the lighter like object, the gas
<in the warehouse exploded, sending pieces of it up to three miles
<away.
<Nothing was found of the technicians, but the lighter was virtually
<untouched by the explosion. The technician suspected of causing the
<blast had never been thought of as 'bright' by his peers.
<
<
<And the winner ...
<
<The Arizona Highway Patrolman came upon a pile of smoldering metal
<embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road at the apex
<of a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but
<it was a car.
<The type of car was unidentifiable at the scene. The lab finally
<figured out what it was and what had happened. It seems that a guy
<had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off -
<actually a solid fuel rocket) that is used to give heavy military
<transport planes an extra "push" for taking off from short airfields.
<He had driven his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long
<and straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his
<car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the JATO! The facts
<as best as could be determined are that the operator of the 1967
<Impala hit the JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles
<from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scorched
<and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly,
<would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy
<to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full
<power for an additional 20-25 seconds. The driver, and soon to be
<pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved
<for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, causing him to
<become insignificant for the remainder of the event. However, the
<automobile remained on the straight highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20
<seconds)before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes,
<blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface,
<then becoming airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the
<cliff face at a height of 125 feet leaving a blackened crater 3 feet
<deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable;
<however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from
<the crater and fingernail and bone shards were removed from a piece
<of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
<
<Epilogue: It has been postulated that this moron nearly reached Mach
<I, attaining a ground speed of approximately 420 mph. Voila'.