[quote]Chrysalis wrote:
This is the kind of thing I am talking about:
(December 1988, Romania) I was a student of electricity and mechanics in Communist Romania. At the time, it was mandatory for all children, including university students, to boost the economy by ‘active participation.’ Each autumn we worked in agriculture, harvesting fruits and vegetables, and for three weeks per year we were required to train in a power plant or factory, to get a feel for successful communist industry. This was known as “Rub The Mint”.
My class was sent to Slatina where aluminum was obtained with the old power-hungry electrolysis process. We were not much use, so we were ignored by the people in charge of our ‘training.’ We spent the down time reviewing our class notes. Not only were the students bored, but so were many workers in the factory, who were actually paid for doing nothing.
One day I was assigned to walk documents from one department to another. On the way, I spotted two men crafting a wooden coffin. I was accustomed to all kinds of crazy sights, but a coffin… intriguing. Was the aluminum factory branching out into funeral supplies? No. “The coffin is for a comrade who accidentally removed himself from the gene pool,” the woodcrafters told me.
Two recent hires, men in their twenties, were fiddling with the pressurized air hose used to power industrial air tools. They swept the dust off their dusty clothes; this was so much fun, one of them dropped his pants to feel the air sweep across his testicles. He bent further, and bet his comrade that he had the guts to pressurize his guts, and maybe have some fun farts. He proceeded to stick the hose in his anus and release six bar (atmospheres) of pressure, inflating and rupturing his colon and intestines.
He died within minutes from massive internal hemorrhage. He would not have survived even if he had pressurized himself in a hospital corridor. The autopsy revealed that the deceased had ruptured several meters of his colon and intestines. He was later found to have broken (heh) internal (heh) regulations. His ‘scientific collaborator’ stated that he did not believe his comrade would be so stupid as to proceed, and thought he was only goofing off.
and this:
January 2008, Pennsylvania) A 23-year-old man with various body piercings decided to have some fun at work. He wondered, “What it would feel like to connect the electronic control tester to my chest piercings?” Several coworkers tried to convince him that it was a bad idea to wire himself up to the electronic device, but he ignored their pleas.
He proceeded to connect two alligator clips to his metal nipple piercings, one on each side, and hit the test button… His coworkers were still trying to revive him with CPR and rescue breathing when police and rescue personnel arrived. They were not successful.
and this:
(13 January 2008, Florida) Wearing only swim trunks and sneakers, a 37-year-old man raced his motorcycle toward the Manasota Key drawbridge. As the bridge began to open, it was clear that he intended to “shoot the gap.” Bridge designers had anticipated such lunacy and invented the crossing guard. The closing gates swept him off his Suzuki, over the side of the bridge, into the water, and out of the gene pool. By a twist of fate the motorcycle continued up the ramp and made it across to the other side.
or this:
An enterprising lumberman had felled a large tree, and needed to haul it up a steep embankment. So he jacked up the rear end of his pickup and swapped one of the rear tires for a bare rim. He attached one end of a rope to the rim, and the other end of the rope to the felled tree. He put the pickup into gear, expecting the rim to act as a makeshift rope crank that would pull the tree up the embankment, saving him lots of sweat.
A great idea? Not if you’re reading it here! You see, the tree vastly outweighed the truck. The man was standing with one foot on the ground and the other foot on the accelerator. When he gunned the engine, the tree acted like an anchor, and the truck yanked itself backwards. The open door rammed into him, and he was swept over the embankment along with the pickup.
When the dust settled, our lumberman had entered the great beyond. But his escapade served as a warning to others. The next lumberman cut up the tree where it lay, and carried it off.
8 March 2008, Florida) Just because you see it online does not mean it’s a good idea. Cameron, 18, was joyriding in a shopping cart as he held onto a moving SUV. An eyewitness said, “It’s irresponsible behavior, but what do you expect from kids?” The car and the cart went over a speed bump and the cart overturned, ejecting its occupant, who was not wearing the little seat belt. Cameron was pronounced dead at the scene.
or this:
(10 January 2007, Germany) A 63-year-old man’s extraordinary effort to eradicate moles from his property resulted in a victory for the moles. The man pounded several metal rods into the ground and connected them–not to household current, which would have been bad enough–but to a high-voltage power line, intending to render the subterranean realm uninhabitable.
Incidentally, the maneuver electrified the very ground on which he stood. He was found dead some time later, at his holiday property on the Baltic Sea. Police had to trip the main circuit breaker before venturing onto the property.
The precise date of the sexagenarian’s demise could not be ascertained, but the electric bill may provide a clue.
(14 January 2007, West Virginia) Raising a new barn is an endeavor that brings a community together. Demolishing a barn is another question. A trio of friends set out to dismantle a dilapidated structure one bracing winter afternoon. Speaking of bracing…
It was all fun and games until one industrious fellow fired up his chainsaw and ripped through a crucial support post. Carrying the weight of a full barn roof, those wooden beams were all that stood between the demolition worker and structural collapse.
The roof succumbed to the pull of gravity, and the ill-fated lumberjack had a few brief moments to contemplate the approach of his deadly problem. As a consolation prize, the deceased was indeed successful at demolishing the barn.
(Late 2007, Spain) Storm winds swept across southern Spain, causing widespread flooding and damage to buildings along the Costa Blanca. “Cool,” thought one intrepid kite surfer as he packed his gear and hit the beach.
Charlie Brown has endless trouble with a kite-eating tree. Move over, Charlie Brown. Today’s large kites are not triangles held aloft by a string. Modern kites are controlled by multiple lines, and their large surface areas create so much pull that it can be difficult to keep your feet on the ground even during normal wind conditions. These were not normal conditions. The government had declared a state of emergency.
“Cool,” thought the surfer as he unfurled his kite, climbed onto his board, and embarked on the ride of a lifetime. The high winds picked him up and carried him almost a kilometer inland, smashing him against buildings along the way. One more nominee joins the line to meet Charles Darwin in person.
There are thousands of these things…to be fair, maybe one in 20 is a woman. My point being, it is not the inventions that I am talking about. It is the complete and utter lack of sense when playing with dangerous things…[/quote]
Considering that most jobs that are dangerous, labor filled, and require skills are done by men. It isn’t until recently that women could openly become firefighters, cops, electricians, motorcycle racers, etc.
Most women have jobs where you can sit in a office and there’s air conditioning. Not much can go wrong there.
The lumber man, the 63 year old man, and the three friends dismantling the barn died, but it was either work related(The Lumber just felled a tree), he was doing work on his property(Old Man trying to kill moles), or trying to demolish a structure because its outdated (Three Friends and the bar).
Consider that mostly men do the dangerous and skilled jobs, it would make sense they would have more accidental deaths.
But driving your car into a gas station on your own time is different.
I do acknowledge the other deaths that you mentioned. Pressurizing one’s anus is just retarded.
