Last year's winner, you will remember, was the fellow who was killed when he attached a JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) unit to his Chevy Impala and shot himself and his car into a desert cliff at 300 M.P.H.
Here are (drum roll) the 1997 runners-up and winners:
5th runner-up: A San Anselmo, California man died when he hit a lift tower at the Mammoth Mountain ski area while riding down the slope on a foam pad. 22-year old David Hubal was pronounced dead at Centennial Mammoth Hospital. The accident occurred about 3 a.m., The Mono County Sheriff's Department said. Hubal and his friends apparently had hiked up a ski run called Stump Alley and undid some yellow foam protectors from lift towers, said Lt. Mike Donnelly of the Mammoth Lakes Police Department. The pads are used to protect skiers who might hit towers. The group apparently used the pads to slide down the ski slope and Hubal crashed into a tower. It has since been investigated and determined the tower he hit was the one with its pad removed.
4th Runner-up: Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call the police. Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it into his mouth. and walked out without paying. Police found him unconscious in front of the store. Paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat where it had choked him to death.
3rd Runner-up: To poacher Marino Malerba of Spain, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock and was killed instantly when it fell on him.
2nd Runner-up: Man loses face at party. A man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the man in Arkansas who used the 22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pick-up truck) popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips. teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an aquarium hooked to a battery and was trying to explode it", said Payne. "It wouldn't go off and this guy said I'll show you how to set it off". "He put it into his mouth and bit down. It blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue off", Payne said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that". Payne said.
1st Runner-up: Doctors at Portland University Hospital said an Oregon man shot through the skull by a hunting arrow is lucky to be alive and will be released soon from the hospital. Tony Roberts, 25, lost his right eye last weekend during an initiation into a mans rafting club, Mountain Men Anonymous (probably known now as Stupid Mountain Men Anonymous) in Grants Pass, Oregon. A friend tried to shoot a beer can off his head, but the arrow entered Robert's right eye. Doctors said had the arrow gone 1 millimeter to the left, a major blood vessel would have been cut and Roberts would have died instantly. Neurosurgeon Doctor Johnny Delashaw at the University Hospital in Portland said the arrow went through 8 to 10 Inches of brain with the tip protruding at the rear of his skull, yet somehow managed to miss all major blood vessels. Delashaw also said had Roberts tried to pull the arrow out on his own he surely would have killed himself. Roberts admitted afterwards he and his friends had been drinking that afternoon. Said Roberts, "I feel so dumb about this". No charges have been filed, but the Josephine County district attorney's office said the initiation stunt is under investigation.
Now this year's winners:
(The late) John Pernicky and his friend, (the late) Sal
And the Webite That Started It All
