DARWIN AWARD - POTENTIAL 1999 AWARD CANDIDATES:

In September in Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in
two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide
sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

In October, a 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally
zoned out when he ran," according to his wife, accidentally jogged
off a 200-foot-high cliff on his daily run.

Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug
into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beachgoers said Daniel
Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had
been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when
it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the
beach, on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to
claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not
reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an
hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was
pronounced dead at a hospital.

In February, Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he
fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was
burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed
in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his
skull as he hit the floor.

According to police in Dahlonega, GA, ROTC cadet Nick Berrena, 20,
was stabbed to death in January by fellow cadet Jeffrey Hoffman, 23,
who was trying to prove that a knife could not penetrate the flak
vest that Berrena was wearing.

Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in February in Selbyville,
Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a
revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

In February, according to police in Windsor, Ontario, Daniel Kolta,
27, and Randy Taylor, 33, died in a head-on collision, thus earning a
tie in the game of chicken they were playing with their snowmobiles.

DARWIN AWARD - HONORABLE MENTIONS

In Guthrie, Okla, in October, Jason Heck tried to kill a millipede
with a shot from his 22-caliber rifle, but the bullet ricocheted off
a rock near the hole, and hit his pal Antonio Martinez in the head,
fracturing his skull.

In Elyria, Ohio, in October, Martyn Eskins, attempting to clean out
cobwebs in his basement, declined to use a broom in favor of a
propane torch and caused a fire that burned the first and second
floors of his house.

Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, in
September, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, by a quarter-stick
of dynamite that blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM,
the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window
to see what would happen, but they apparently failed to notice that
the window was closed.In

Betulia, Colombia, an annual festival in November includes five days
of amateur bullfighting. This year, no bull was killed, but dozens of
matadors were injured, including one gored in the head, and one
Bobbittized. Said one participant, "It's just one bull against [a
town of] a thousand morons."