Potential "Darwin Awards" candidate

[bao-bao]

I received a bunch of examples of foolish behavior in an email this morning and thought I'd share this one.

It doesn't look all that stupid at first...



...but when you see better how high up he was...

[Jun]

This is not stupid. This is no more dangerous than standing on a ladder & people do that every day.

He does have less of a problem with vertigo than I would have.

[thaiworthy]

This is not stupid. This is no more dangerous than standing on a ladder & people do that every day.

I don't agree. I think falling off most ladders would impact your health much less severely than a plunge from this height.

And if you suffer from vertigo, then don't look down, which is obviously how this foolish young man accomplished his task.

[Jun]

I think falling off most ladders would impact your health much less severely than a plunge from this height.

Most people have a cunning little solution for this problem which involves not falling off the ladder.

That's rather the same as driving your car down the road and managing not to swerve into the path of those oncoming trucks.

[thaiworthy]

Most people have a cunning little solution for this problem which involves not falling off the ladder.

That's rather the same as driving your car down the road and managing not to swerve into the path of those oncoming trucks.

No. It isn't. Jun, come on, driving on the road is not foolhardiness. Sorry, but your logic is faulty. Taking unnecessary risks is the point. Ladders are made to be climbed, cars are made to be driven. Take another look at the picture. He's perched on the building ledge, which was not built for him to step on while washing windows!

[Jun]

People stand on the back of the baht bus and manage not to fall off. He can probably manage not to fall off that window ledge. There's a good incentive to hang on.

At least that's entirely under his own control. Unlike standing on the back of the baht bus, where if another vehicle runs into the rear, you're never going to walk again.

[bao-bao]

People stand on the back of the baht bus and manage not to fall off. He can probably manage not to fall off that window ledge.

Standing on a ledge without any form of safety equipment about 35 floors up puts him in the running for the award, I think.
"Probably manage to hang on" is a bit more of a chance than this old codger would prefer to risk!

[Bob]

Other than the "potential" Darwin Awards candidate, the world is full of actual case studies. Recently, here in the US, a group of guys rode their motorcycles without helmets in NY State to protest the helmet law there. One of the riders braked suddenly, went over the handle bars and landed on his head, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. The state troopers and the attending physicians all said the guy would have survived if he had been wearing the helmet.

[Gaybutton]

This Darwin Award nominee is my personal favorite. If he was "one of the best and brightest" from among a 200-man association, somehow I don't think I'll be hiring any of the other 199:
_______

Lawyer Aloft

1996 Darwin Award Nominee
Confirmed True by Darwin

(1996, Toronto) Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane of glass with his shoulder and plunged twenty-four floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry, thirty-nine, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students. Garry had previously conducted the demonstration of window strength without mishap, according to police reports. The managing partner of the law firm that employed the deceased told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Garry was "one of the best and brightest" members of the two-hundred-man association.

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1996-01.html