Darwin award is an annual honor given to the person who did the gene pool the biggest service by
killing/injuring themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. This year winner was one of the
few Darwin Award nominees to survive his award-winning accomplishment.

In rural Carbon County, PA, a group of men were drinking beer and discharging firearms from the rear
deck of a home owned by Irving Michaels, age 27. The men were firing at a raccoon that was wandering
by, but the beer apparently impaired their aim and, despite of the estimated 35 shots the group
fired, the animal escaped into a 3 foot diameter drainage pipe some 100 feet away from Mr. Michaels'
deck.

Determined to terminate the animal, Mr. Michaels retrieved a can of gasoline and poured some down the
pipe, intending to smoke the animal out. After several unsuccessful attempts to ignite the fuel,
Michaels emptied the entire 5 gallon fuel can down the pipe and tried to ignite it again, to no
avail.

Not one to admit defeat by wildlife, the determined Mr. Michaels proceeded to slide feet-first
approximately 15 feet down the sloping pipe to toss the match. The subsequent rapidly expanding
fireball propelled Mr. Michaels back the way he had come, though at a much higher rate of speed. He
exited the angled pipe "like a Polaris missile leaves a submarine," according to witness Joseph
McFadden, 31.

Mr. Michaels was launched directly over his own home, right over the heads of his astonished friends,
onto his front lawn. In all, he traveled over 200 feet through the air. "There was a Doppler Effect
to his scream as he flew over us," McFadden reported, "Followed by a loud thud."

Amazingly, he suffered only minor injuries. "It was actually pretty cool," Michaels said, "Like when
they shoot someone out of a cannon at the circus. I'd do it again if I was sure I wouldn't get hurt."

There still is no word about the raccoon.