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Darwin Awards Thread

acbytesla said:
Do you think it's possible that some individuals were never discovered and survived?
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It's possible. But the number is likely low. Seems like a lot of the survivors are found unconscious.
acbytesla said:
I don't see someone surviving a long distance cruising at 35,000 feet. A short haul commercial flight might never reach an altitude of 25,000 feet.
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The cold is both a blessing and a curse in this regard. There's not enough oxygen at 35k ft for ordinary survival, but when your body gets cold, your oxygen requirements (particularly for your brain) can drop quite a bit as well. Which is how people can sometimes survive being submerged in icy water far longer than they can survive being submerged in warm water. But the re-warming process is not exactly safe (especially without medical aid), as the low survival rate of known wheel well cases shows.
 
3point14 said:
Okay, that sounds like an utterly horrific thing!
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She was upset about the first one, but I called her from Saigon three days later, so she had a chance to chill. The 2nd one she just sneered at it. I was ten days getting back to base that time. We had a code set up. If the operator said "Will you accept a collect call from ***** ******?" she would know it was me and I was alive, and she should refuse the charge so I would know she "got it".

My brother joined the USAF a year before I joined the USN. He was faced with the horrific scenario of getting a paper cut, maybe.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Not quite.

Of 113 documented attempts there were 86 deaths, a 76 percent fatality rate..
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I see. I'll amend that to near-certain death and definitely not a pleasant experience. Losing consciousness is probably a blessing here.

One survivor, Armando Socarras Ramirez, who defected from Cuba aboard an Iberia flight from Havana to Madrid in 1969, recalled in 2021 that his earliest post-flight memories are of Spanish doctors calling him "Mr. Popsicle" because ice covered his body when the pilot discovered him after his arrival. He had boarded the plane while it was taxiing, carrying a flashlight, rope, and wool to stuff his ears; a companion fell out of the other wheel well before takeoff and a third backed out at the last moment. After takeoff, he had suffered frostbite on his middle finger so severe it turned black holding on until the wheels retracted, but then remembered nothing save shivering and shaking from the extreme cold until he lost consciousness. It took him a month in a Spanish hospital to regain his hearing, but he reports no lingering medical issues from the experience.
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acbytesla said:
It qualifies. Sad though. I'm of the opinion that many rock climbers deserve the award. But I figure at least they understand that their hobby is about courting death.
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When I used to rock climb decades ago, if you used all the safety equipment i.e. ropes etc, it was actually pretty safe. Or at least, the climbing was pretty safe. People did occasionally die but it would be doing things like abseiling to get to the bottom of sea cliffs or coming down the descent path afterwards or on the drive to the area with the crags in it.
 
jeremyp said:
When I used to rock climb decades ago, if you used all the safety equipment i.e. ropes etc, it was actually pretty safe. Or at least, the climbing was pretty safe. People did occasionally die but it would be doing things like abseiling to get to the bottom of sea cliffs or coming down the descent path afterwards or on the drive to the area with the crags in it.
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Yeah, my cousin does a lot of that. Crazy strong hands.

I'm really referring to free climbing. Without ropes and a partner. That's insane
 
Ziggurat said:
Not disqualifying. Removing yourself from future reproductive capability can still count.
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My understanding is, once you've perpetuated your genes unto the next generation, it doesn't much matter what you do with your body after that. The primary goal of your existence has already been fulfilled, Darwin-wise.
 
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