Re: 1999 Darwin Awards (about an Alaskan Darwin winner)

From: John M Grigg (starman125@lycos.com)
Date: Sun Aug 13 2000 - 19:52:13 MDT


I read Mike's story about the man who drove the heavy equipment across the lake with fatal results with interest. He may not have been stupid but simply a risk-taker who liked pushing his luck. And he died for it...

In Alaska we had a famous case of a young man in his early twenties who came up after graduating from a nice east coast college. He was seen as brilliant but somewhat eccentric and private by his few friends. This fellow moved into a broken down schoolbus in the wilds of Alaska during the late fall. He gave away much of the food supplies he had originally gotten for the trip!

Snow came and his food ran out. He was many miles from other people and not sure of his way around. He simply stayed holed up in the van and slowly starved to death. About a week after he died a pair of hunters came across the bus and found his dead body.

A bestselling book was written about what happened. It was a good read and showed a troubled soul who thought he could find himself in the wilds of Alaska. I'm not sure to what extent he was "an idiot" for not planning ahead or simply had a unconcious death wish. He left messages behind saying he did want to live. Some folks just don't have any common sense I guess!

sincerely,

John
  

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