Darwin award candidates

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,823
A few things come to mind. Is it normal to leave a suspect completely unattended in the back of a patrol car? It would seem prudent to have at least one officer assigned to keep watch on them, if possible (and there didn't seem to be any shortage of officers about). If nothing else, that officer is available if the suspect has any kind of medical emergency, let alone starts acting up. A second thought is whether it is standard procedure to leave keys in an unattended patrol car, whether or not there is a suspect in it. But, in this case, I could see an argument that, on a summer day, you would leave the car running and the air conditioner on when there is a suspect in the back. Third, the suspect drove around the first couple sets of stop sticks. There would seem to be some easy ways to make that more difficult. Finally, I don't understand why they positioned that last set of stop sticks right before a line of cars, including a semi, on the side of the road. It would seem reasonable that a person driving over a set stop sticks at a high rate of speed is likely to lose control of the vehicle right after and there was no lack of alternatives right there in that immediate location.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
32,823
Up on one of the rivers in the mountain here (I think it's the North Fork of the South Platte River) there is a very prominent sign, probably something like six to ten feet on a side, telling people not to dive into the river. Seems rather odd, given that this is a very long river and there was nothing obvious that made this particular spot stand out -- if anything, it was less accessible than most. Turns out that there was a guy that was drinking with his friends and dove into the river head first. The river is only about four or five feet deep there, so he hit is head on the rocks at the bottom. Thoroughly dazed, he climbs out, goes back to the same spot, does the same stupid thing, hits his head again and kills himself. The family sues Denver (the own the river, which is part of the water delivery system for the Denver metro area) and part of the settlement was that they erect the sign.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,487
Back in Alabama I was a caver and member of the National Speleological Society. I found a cave on the face of a cliff over a small river. So, I got a couple of buddies and went to check it out. The only way to access it was a small 6-8" ledge. Nice footholds with plenty of handholds and we made it into the cave relatively easy. It wasn't a large cavern but a nice small cave with a tiny exit to the ground above the cliff. Too small for me but one of my buddies was able to squeeze through it. We didn't map it but gave it a good look see and were coming out. I was on the ledge using the proper three points of contact at all times when one of my handholds broke off sending me off the ledge 20' above the water. As I was falling the thought went through my mind "at least I'll land in the water". I did indeed hit the water but there was a large rock about 12" under the water that I hadn't pIanned for! I ended up going to the ER and luckily only had 3 broken ribs and plenty of bruises. The moral of the story is "never trust water to be just water, you never know what lurks beneath"! Very interesting was that several hundred yards further downriver the river disappeared underground and came back up further down. The whole area was limestone karst riddled with small caves.
 
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