4/18/97

Here we are folks-this year's Darwin Award is finally out.

Unusually, the recipient of this year's award may have a pop at winning next
year too....

The Darwin Awards

You all know about the Darwin Awards - it's an annual honor given to the
person who did the gene pool the biggest service by killing themselves in
the most extraordinarily stupid way.

The 1995 winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which
toppled over on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

In 1996 the winner was an air force sergeant who attached a JATO unit to the
roof of his car and crashed into a cliff several hundred feet above the
roadbed (a JATO unit is rocket similar to a jet engine). Apparently, he
wanted to go faster.

And now, the 1997 winner:  Larry Waters of Los Angeles-one of the few
Darwin winners to survive his award-winning accomplishment. Larry's boyhood
dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air
Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight
disqualified him. When he was finally discharged, he had to satisfy
himself with watching jets fly over his backyard. One day, Larry had a
bright idea.
He decided to fly. He went to the local Army-Navy surplus store and
purchased 45 weather balloons and several tanks of helium. The weather
balloons, when fully inflated, would measure more than four feet across.
Back home, Larry securely strapped the balloons to his sturdy lawn chair.
He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons
with the helium. He climbed on for a test while it was still only a few feet
above the ground. Satisfied it would work, Larry packed several sandwiches
and a six-pack of Miller Lite, loaded his pellet gun-figuring he could pop a
few balloons when it was time to descend-and went back to the floating lawn
chair. He tied himself in along with his pellet gun and provisions.

Larry's plan was to lazily float up to a height of about 30 feet above his
back yard after severing the anchor and in a few hours come back down.
Things didn't quite work out that way. When he cut the cord anchoring the
lawn chair to his jeep, he didn't float lazily up to 30 or so feet. Instead
he streaked into the LA sky as if shot from a cannon. He didn't level off at
30 feet, nor did he level off at 100 feet.

After climbing and climbing, he leveled off at 11,000 feet. At that height
he couldn't risk shooting any of the balloons, lest he unbalance the load and
really find himself in trouble. So he stayed there drifting, cold and
frightened, for more than 14 hours. Then he really got in trouble.

He found himself drifting into the the primary approach corridor of Los
Angeles International Airport. A United pilot first spotted Larry. He
radioed the tower and described passing a guy in a lawn chair with a gun.
Radar confirmed the existence of an object floating 11,000 feet above the
airport.

LAX emergency procedures swung into full alert and a helicopter was
dispatched to investigate.

LAX is right on the ocean. Night was falling and the offshore breeze began
to flow. It carried Larry out to sea with the helicopter in hot pursuit.
Several miles out, the helicopter caught up with Larry. Once the crew
determined that Larry was not dangerous, they attempted to close in for a
rescue but the draft from the blades would push Larry away whenever they
neared.

Finally, the helicopter ascended to a position several hundred feet above
Larry and lowered a rescue line. Larry snagged the line and was hauled back
to shore. The difficult maneuver was flawlessly executed by the helicopter
crew.

As soon as Larry was hauled to earth, he was arrested by waiting members of
the LAPD for violating LAX airspace. As he was led away in handcuffs, a
reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue asked why he had done it.
Larry stopped,turned and replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit
around."

Lets hear it for Larry Waters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner.