Charles Darwin at a green chalkboard.

2000 Darwin Awards

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? Honoring Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool--by removing themselves from it in the most spectacular way possible.

Sand Surfing
2000 Darwin Award Winner
Confirmed by Darwin

(25 November 2000, Australia) At the Spring Nationals country festival in Shepparton, a celebration truck drove noisily down Main Street at a sedate pace of 5mph, with frolicking people climbed all over it. The sight of the slow-moving truck gave a visitor from Cranbourne a bright idea. He decided to surf along behind the truck.

All decked out in his big Mexican hat, with a can of beer in one hand and a rope attached to the back of the truck in the other, he slid along the surface of the road on a piece of cardboard, having a wonderful time... until the rope caught beneath the truck, and he was pulled under the wheels. As if becoming a human speed hump isn't amusing enough, the photo on the front page of the newspaper showed the body in a body bag -- with the Mexican hat beside it!

Artist's Rendition


Major Tom illustrates the accident.

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Submitted by: Keith Lello, Major Tom

JP says, "The Spring Nationals are a car show party, a show-off-your-burnout-skills weekend. I saw the whole thing happen from the sidewalk, and it was not pretty. Just to show how stupid this idiot REALLY was, earlier he was jumping in front of moving cars and attacking their windscreens with a water pistol. Dumbass."

John says, "I wish to correct a few mistakes in this story. The poor truck was not part of the Summer Nats event, he was just driving home and got caught up in the crowd. Our intrepid surfe from Cranbourne was not really surfing, he was hanging from the spare wheel carrier and fell under the wheels of the trailer when the driver (who did not know he was there) changed gears. Otherwise the story is pretty much true. Another interesting fact was that the trailer was empty, other wise he would have really been hurt. My info comes from eyewitnesses and emergency service personnel."

Nathan Scholz says, "This story is true. It was on the TV news. The cameras showed him just seconds before he died, and the immediate aftermath, but not the actual Darwin earning moment."

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