Darwin Awards: 1998

A 34 yr. old white male found dead in the basement of his home died of suffocation, police said. He was approximately 6' 2" and 225 lb. He was wearing a pleated skirt, white bra, black and white saddle shoes and a woman's wig. It appeared that he was trying to create a schoolgirl's uniform look. He was also wearing a military gas mask that had the filter canister removed and a rubber hose attached in its place. The other end of the hose was connected to a hollow wooden section of bedpost approximately 12 inches long and 3 inches in diameter. This bedpost was inserted into his rectum for reasons unknown, and was the cause of his suffocation. Police found the task of explaining the circumstances of his death to his family members "very awkward."

Three Brazilian men were flying in a light aircraft at low altitude when another plane approached. It appears they decided to "moon" the occupants of the other plane, but lost control of the plane and crashed. They were all found dead in the wreckage with their pants around their ankles.

A police officer in Ohio responded to a call that was made to 911. She had no details before arriving except that someone was reporting that his father was not breathing. Upon arrival, the officer found the man face down on the couch, naked. When she rolled him over to check for a pulse and to start CPR if necessary, she noticed burn marks around his genitals. After the ambulance arrived and removed the man (who turned out to be dead on arrival at hospital), the police made a closer inspection of the couch, and noticed that the man had made a hole between the cushions. Upon flipping the couch over they discovered what caused his death. Apparently the man had a habit of putting his penis between the cushions, down into the hole and between two electric sanders (with the sandpaper removed for obvious reasons). According to the story, after his orgasm the...ahem...discharge shorted out one of the sanders, electrocuting him to death.

(AP) LOS ANGELES - Police officials would not release the name of a Pacoima man who was found dead yesterday after responding to complaints from neighbors that a bad smell was coming from his apartment. Upon entering the apartment, officers were surprised to see that every square inch of the apartment, including appliances and even the inside of the toilet, were covered with pornographic images cut from magazines. "The visual effect was very unsettling," said Officer Hradj of the Pacoima Police. "Because everything looked the same, you could not tell where one wall ended and a doorway began."
The surprises did not end there, however. Police described the man as having "concocted a wire frame around his head" upon which he had taped various pornographic images, apparently so he could freely move about his apartment without ever losing his close-up view of nude bodies. Small slits had been cut into the paper so he could find his way, but according to Hradj, "He had almost no peripheral vision. He could barely see a thing." The man was found nude with this wire frame entangled in a hanging lamp. "We think he had been dusting," said another police officer, "because a feather duster was lying nearby, and his head gear had somehow become caught in the lamp, which was chained to the ceiling." The man apparently choked to death trying to extricate himself from his predicament.
According to his apartment manager, the white male in his mid-30's never left his apartment, and had food delivered weekly. Funeral services are planned for next week. His next of kin requested that his name be withheld.

A young Inuit man, searching for a way of getting drunk cheaply because he had no money to buy alcohol, mixed gasoline with milk. Not surprisingly, this concoction made him ill, and he vomited into the fireplace in his house. The resulting explosion and fire burned his house down, killing both him and his sister.

A 27 year old French woman lost control over her car on a highway near Marseilles and crashed into a tree, killing herself and seriously injuring her passenger.
As a commonplace road accident, this would not have qualified for a Darwin nomination were it not for the fact that the driver's attention had been distracted by her Tamagotchi key ring, which had started urgently beeping for food as she drove along. In attempting to press the correct buttons to save the Tamagotchi's life, the woman lost her own.