Darwin Awards

[nzlegend 1]

This stupid little twirp in NZ was making a bid for a nomination in the 2003 Darwins.......look at me I am touching 11000volts!

[badmigraine 0]

That's horrible, the poor kid has really paid the price for his mistake.

 

Makes me wonder how I survived childhood, given all the really, really crazy stupid stuff we used to do.

 

And, it makes me scared to have my own kids, because I know they will be out there with matches and gasoline, trying to jump onto freight trains, roof- and wall-walking 100m above ground, racing bikes down long steep paved hills, climbing inside clothes dryers, hitching slide-rides behind giant trucks on icy snow days, etc.

 

And don't even get me started about the motorcycle, drug, pellet-gun and extreme-sports challenge phases they will inevitably go through.

 

Scary.

[fantastic 0]

I used to eat wood, especially freshly painted and creosoted wood. Mmm, Yummy.

[Ocean11 0]

That's dumb that they're arguing who was to blame for the tree. Doesn't the kid have parents, otherwise known as guardians? Parents are supposed to say things like "Son, if I see you going near those powerlines again, I swear I'll slap your head so hard you'll think you were electrocuted." That way, the kid lives long enough to tell his own kids what a mean bastard his dad was.

[nzlegend 1]

Yep I committed multitude of stupid stuff in my childhood career, but they were random stupid things. My parents drummed it in to me to NEVER touch powerlines, climb powerpoles, NEVER play on the road (100kph road next to our property, NEVER play with dads guns and NEVER touch bullets.

They were explicitly clear in this and even as a 5year old I fully understood and feared powerlines bullets and the highway.

 

These kids reguraly played in this tree and used the maintainence platform of the power pole as a tree house! heck if I had down that my mum would have given me the hiding of my life and I never would have gone near that tree again ever.

 

I bet that kids folks are feeling awfully guilty.

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by fantastic:
I used to eat wood, especially freshly painted and creosoted wood. Mmm, Yummy.

many children did, they became addicted to the slight sweet taste of the lead oxide in the paint.

Suggest you get yourself checked out for lead poisoning.

[mogski 0]

I'd just like to point out that everything badmig's describes in his above post are the most recent things he has attempted. Not to mention naked wake sakting and getting a fine for it

 

As for this kid, with the amount of publicity on the consequences of touching power lines everywhere in NZ, I really do think the blame should fall on him and his guardians as Ocean said. Although I do agree that the responsibility of whose job it is to ensure that the foliage are not hindering the power lines should be established too.

 

It appers the trees are owned by the local council who have a responsibility to maintain them, but the power company included a clause in their contract to maintain the lines and ensure that foliage were not a danger to the line.

[badmigraine 0]

Ocean, I don't have kids but was one once. They get to an age when they just don't do as told, in spite of all warnings and explanations. You just can't be monitoring them all day, and that (when they are "free") is when they do the Bad Stuff.

 

Don't you remember?

 

We all had oodles of secrets from our parents...that scares the s*** out of me, because I am looking at having my own kids. God help me! And them too.