- [Narrator] Ah, people are dumb, so dumb that many
accidentally remove themselves from the gene pool in the
most idiotic ways possible. I mean, there's so many, we're on part 12 of this series now, and there's still no end in sight. With that said, let's get
right to the good stuff and take a look at even
more Darwin award winners and people who ended themselves in the dumbest ways imaginable. Permanent bed head. Moving a mattress is no easy task. With the average mattress
weighing up to 150 pounds and being pretty bulky, they need to be well strapped down with being transported
on top of a van or car. This is kind of obviously to
stop the wind catching them and tearing them off. Although this is some
pretty basic thinking that didn't occur to a
certain 20 year old woman back in 2016. She and her friend were trying
to transport a mattress, but the thing was too
big to fit in their van. Their solution? One would ride on top of the mattress, pinning it to the roof of the van, while the other drove. What could possibly go wrong? A lot, it turned out. Unaware of how the laws of motion worked and massively overestimating
the mattress surfer's strength, the whole thing flipped
off as soon as the driver put their foot on the gas. The mattress hit the road,
and so did our unlucky lady. I'm happy to say the
mattress bounced back. Our mattress surfer on
the other hand, didn't. Struck speechless. Road rage ain't no joke, but it can have some
pretty funny consequences if the events of September 12th, 2021 are anything to go by. At 1:30 AM on this Sunday morning, two drivers collided on
the I-80 in California. Instead of taking their argument off to the side of the road, the drivers decided to commence arguing in the middle of the traffic lanes. In the early morning, they
must have idiotically assumed that no one but them
would be using the road and they were dead wrong. A few minutes later, both men were struck by an oncoming car and were
found unresponsive at the scene. That's certainly one
way to park an argument. Scrap idea. There are plenty of safe things you can source scrap metal from. Cars, old equipment, recycled cans. The list goes on. You know what isn't safe to
source scrap metal from though? Grenades. Specifically rocket propelled grenades or RPGs for short. But this didn't occur to a man in Rio de Janeiro back in 2006, who was so hell bent on getting his hands on some scrap metal, he'd do anything to crank open an old disused RPG he'd found. First, he tried driving
over the explosive device with his car. And when that didn't work, he decided to carefully and considerately smash the thing open a sledgehammer. To no one's surprise, the
sledgehammer worked in a manner. Not only did it manage
to open the grenade, but the force of the resulting explosion also opened up our man, six cars and the repair shop he'd been working in. When police showed up, they found a phenomenal 14
more of these stored nearby. So even if that one hadn't exploded, there was a good chance
one of the others would've. Talk about being destined
for a Darwin award. Now, like I said, this
is part 12 of a series. If you like it so far and want a part 13, be sure to hit those like and
subscribe buttons down below. All done? Great. What incredible act of
idiocy do we have next? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a lawyer. There are smart people. There are intelligent people. And then there are lawyers. Studying for a law degree
and passing the bar exam are two of the hardest
academic achievements anyone can accomplish. So you kind of assume they're
the brightest of the bunch, but not always. Back in 1984, a young lawyer was attending an early Fourth of July party
at his office in Chicago. Apparently he got into a heated debate with one of his colleagues
about the Olympics, and to settle their dispute, they agreed to have a race down a corridor of their building. Seems like a fun, safe solution, right? Well, I should mention
that our young lawyer needed glasses to see long distances because he had taken
them off before the race so they didn't fall off his face. Oh, and also that his office was in a glass paned high-rise building, and that they were racing
around the 39th floor. You see where this is heading, yeah? Well, our lawyer definitely didn't. As he was running headlong
down the corridor, the young lawyer lost
his perspective and went crashing through one of the
plate glass window panes. While he may have lost the race, he did make the 400 foot
journey from the 39th floor to the ground floor in just six seconds. That's gotta be a new record, right? Dodging debts. Nobody likes getting
to the end of the night in their local bar and realizing
they have to pay their tab. Ordering drinks for everybody seemed like such a good idea four hours ago. While most people just swallow
their pride and pay up, back in 2001 it was
reported that two gentlemen at a bar in Cairo decided not to do this. Instead, they skipped out
on their $180 whiskey tab and tried to escape by diving
into the River Nile nearby. Seems like a smart getaway. However, through most of Cairo, the Nile is around a thousand feet wide, roughly the length of 13
tennis courts laid end to end. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd struggle to swim
that distance sober, never mind having drunk
$180 worth of whiskey. While one of the drunken
dudes just about managed to scramble his way to the far shore, where the police were waiting for him, the second misjudged his
ability to swim that far and never made it to shore. That's one way to get outta
paying your tab, I guess. High on life. Now in the US, you don't need a license to drive a ride-on lawnmower, providing you're not taking
it down a public road. You know what you do need a
license to operate though? A plane. I mean, seeing how
complicated flying can be, you can all see why, right? Well, this clearly wasn't
something that occurred to a father and son gardening duo, who back in 2000 had been
hired to trim the fields over at New Mexico's
Tucumcari municipal airport. But instead of riding their lawnmowers, the duo came up with the bright idea to take one of the
aircraft for a joy ride. So, while left unsupervised, they sneakily stole a small
two person Ercoupe plane, filled up the tanks and then
took off from the runway. They made it 150 feet into their ascent when suddenly the plane started to wobble. Now, most pilots would know
what to do in this situation. Unfortunately, neither the
father nor son was a pilot. Neither did they have any
type of pilot training or, to anyone's knowledge, any experience of flying
a plane whatsoever. As such, the plane nose
dived into the ground and burst into flames,
taking both idiots with it. Were they really dumb enough to think it'd just be like driving
a mower but in the air? Well, whatever they thought,
this joy ride ended in flames. A real firecracker. Here's a question for you. If you wanted some firecrackers, you know, the little explosives that make a real loud banging noise, how would you go about acquiring some? You'd just buy some, right,
like a normal person. Well, according to an
unconfirmed report from 2002, one man over in Croatia thought the idea of paying for
firecrackers was far too safe and decided to make his own for some New Year's celebrations. How? By using whatever he had to hand, which turned out to be a
chainsaw and a hand grenade. I don't think I have to
explain that sawing into an explosive device is a really bad idea, one that cost this idiot his life. But it won him a Darwin award, so at least he still had
something to celebrate. Gone fishing. Have you ever heard of blast fishing? Like the name suggests, it's
where people use explosives to stunt or kill entire schools of fish out in open water for easy pickings. It's a very dangerous and
largely illegal practice, but it'd take more than that to stop a couple of Illinois idiots from indulging in a little illegal Sunday
afternoon blast fishing back in 1998. The two friends hopped in
a 14 foot aluminum boat and sailed down onto
the waters of Fox Lake. Once they were far enough out, they lit up a quarter stick of dynamite, threw it into the water
and waited for the fish to float up to them. What they hadn't realized was that they'd thrown the dynamite
down wind of the boat, so a few seconds later,
their boat was blown right over the dynamite. The explosion ripped a
huge hole in their boat, sinking in about a
hundred yards from shore. Now it's unclear whether one of them was knocked unconscious by the blast or more likely couldn't
swim, but either way, he never made it back to shore. At least now he knows
how those poor fish felt, only stupider. SK-ARMA. There are a few things
you need to go skiing, protective wear, the right
equipment and good visibility. And as you probably guessed, the next guy who earned
himself a Darwin award had none of these. Back in 2002, a 22 year old idiot and a few of his friends
decided to hike up Mammoth Mountain in Nevada at 3:00 AM for a little out of hours skiing session. Being a spur of the moment decision, our spontaneous skier hadn't brought anything to ski down on. So he decided to improvise by ripping some of the safety padding off of one of the ski lift towers, which usually protects
skiers that accidentally hit the big metal poles on
their way down the slope. Padding in hand, he made
the huge hike to the top, hopped on and slid down. He was having the time of his life, right up until he came to a dead stop. Literally. It turned out our stupid
sledder in the pitch black had slammed straight into the lift tower he'd removed the pad from. Gee, if only there'd been, I don't know, some sort of protective padding there so that this exact thing didn't happen. Honestly, I despair. I really do. Check what you're taking. Now I've never stolen as
much as a stick of gum in my entire life, but even I know that if you're
going to steal something, you should probably double check
what you're stealing first. Otherwise you'll end
up like the five idiots from the Czech Republic who
joined the Darwin awards back in 2008. These five dumb dumbs
decided to break into an abandoned factory in the town of Kladno to steal some scrap metal. They quickly got to work breaking down a couple of upright
steel girders they found. What they hadn't realized
is that these girders were the only thing supporting the factory's roof above them. Once dismantled, the
roof obviously collapsed, crushing two of the thieves
and injuring the three others. So if after that story, you're still set on a
life of scrap metal crime, remember, gravity doesn't
care if it's an accident, or if you're just an idiot. Bad bungee. Have you ever been bungee jumping? It's an exhilarating experience. But jumping off a bridge
or a cliff with nothing but a big elastic cord
attached to your ankles to stop you from hitting the
ground is pretty dangerous, which is why you should always
do it with professionals that have all the right
gear, licenses and insurance. The exact opposite of
what one thrill seeker did back in 1997. This 22 year old fast food worker from Fairfax County,
Virginia decided to seek some cheap thrills by bungying off a 70 foot railroad trestle bridge. The only problem was that
he didn't have access to a professionally made
super thick bungee cord. So he just made one himself. Can you guess what he
made it out of though? Bungee cords! You know, the little elastic straps you use to keep car trucks closed or hook a sleeping bag to a backpack. Yeah, those. Somehow he thought strapping
a bunch of them together would be enough to hold his weight when he jumped off the trestle. And you know what, it might have been had he made the rope short enough. In an astonishingly moronic move, our thrill seeker made the rope too long and ended up making very close
friends with the pavement 70 foot below, pancake style, if you know what I mean. A tough act to swallow. Back in 1999, the most amazing
Darwin award of all time, in my opinion, was given out to an unnamed performer from Bonn, Germany. The performer was apparently
a professional sword swallower and was able to swallow a wide range of long, ridiculous objects, like swords, balloons
and even large umbrellas. Except one day, while he
was showing off his skills with an umbrella, he apparently hit the
automatic release button on the umbrella's handle. The umbrella opened while
still lodged in his throat and the avid entertainer didn't
live to perform an encore. It almost sounds plausible, and while the performer earned
an official Darwin award, there are several holes in the story. For a start, the first report
of this surfaced in 1997, not 1999. Since then multiple reports of
the same story have surfaced in different years with
the exact same scenario happening to a poor performer named Boris in New Jersey back in 2007, except there are no obituaries
or records to suggest any of these stories are real. The sword swallowing
community even came together to claim it's just not possible to fit a folded umbrella down one's esophagus, as it would be too wide. As such, this is almost
definitely an urban legend. That said, have you ever seen someone swallow a whole umbrella tip first? Maybe you have a photo of it. If you do, send it through
to stories@beamazed.com and I'll be sure to feature
you in an upcoming video. Providing we don't eat ourselves out of the gene pool before then. Speaking of which... Zipadee doo dah. Brits abroad don't have
the greatest reputation. Stereotypically, they
can be loud, obnoxious, and on occasion, so
stupid that they end up earning themselves a Darwin award. At least that's what one Brit did up in the Italian Alps back in 2002. The 49 year old climber
was with his family enjoying the incredible
views from the mountains near Belluno in northern Italy. And then in what I can only describe as an utterly insane move, he snapped his mountain climbing clasp onto a disused cable car cable, and tried to slide down
it using his hands. For some reason, he seemed
to think he'd be able to control his super steep
descent using only his hands. And while everyone around
him, even passers by, tried to stop him, he ignored
them and did it anyways. Perhaps the cable still
had a layer of grease on it from its old cable car days, or maybe he just didn't have the strength that he thought he did. Well, whatever it was,
he quickly lost control, which saw him smash into
several rocky outcrops before coming to a dead and sticky stop on a metal support pylon
about 650 feet down the cable. Yeah. When you're about to do something so dumb that a bunch of strangers
butt in to try and stop you, that's probably the point at which you should reevaluate your life choices, unless you're gunning for
a Darwin award that is. Jailbird learns to fly. Jail breaks look really cool in films and are almost always
pulled off without a hitch. But in reality, they're
much more dangerous and foolish than they
appear on the big screen, as proven by an Allegheny
County Jail inmate back in 1997. He decided that instead of
staying to face the music, he needed to make a speedy exit. So he tied together a couple of bedsheets he'd pilfered from other inmates, broke the supposedly
shatterproof window of his cell, and then used the bedsheet
rope to repel down the outer jail wall. But there were just two
problems with his plan. The first was that his makeshift rope was about 60 feet long. But his cell was on the 17th story. So his rope was roughly 90
feet short of the ground. The second was that he hadn't
cleared the window frame of the remaining glass shards, and these cut the bed sheets
as he was climbing down, eventually shearing his
makeshift rope in two and sending him plummeting
more than eight stories to his dumb demise. Talk about being criminally stupid. Slide of his life. So we've established that
people can be pretty dumb, but you know what makes
them even more dumb? Alcohol. And it was this devil juice
that saw a 25 year old man from Calgary, Canada, given a Darwin award back in the year 2000. He and his buddies had been out drinking and they decided to continue the party at a friend's apartment complex. That's when one of them
challenged the rest of the group by saying, "Who's gonna ride
the in-house water slide?" Spoiler alert, it was not
in fact a water slide, but the complex's garbage shoot. Unfortunately, our man of the hour drunkenly took up the offer. What he obviously didn't
realize in his drunken state was that there would be an
industrial trash compactor waiting for him at the other end. Although that was the
least of his worries, as the shoot down was a
near vertical 12 story drop. Over 100 feet. Well, by winning a Darwin award, at least his passing didn't go to waste. Unlike his body. God help us. There's nothing wrong
with following a faith, but following one to your
death isn't worth it. As pastor Jonathan Mthethwa
supposedly discovered. According to multiple
tabloids back in 2017, this pastor of the Saint
of the Last Days Church in White River, Mpumalanga
promised his congregation he would demonstrate the
strength of his faith by walking on water. In the whole week leading up to the event he fasted and prayed. And when that fateful morning came, he waded out a hundred
feet into the river, but before he could attempt
the biblical recreation and claim he was Jesus reborn, three huge crocodiles quickly
swam up and devoured him. Yep, somehow Pastor
Mthethwa had missed the memo that this river was
nicknamed Crocodile River. And with good reason apparently. Church deacon Nkosi supposedly
said that after 30 minutes there was nothing left of the pastor except his sandals and underwear. Tabloids all over the world
rushed to report the story, but something wasn't quite right. The first tabloids to report
the story were in Zimbabwe, but White River is in
neighboring South Africa. How would anyone in Zimbabwe
have gotten the story first? It turned out the whole
story was just a spoof. Something someone in the newsroom had cooked up for sensationalism. But the fact that so many news outlets and people believed it
tells us a lot about how little faith we all
have left in humanity. Getting closer to God. Anyone who does charity work
is an incredible human being, in my humble opinion. But while done with the best intentions, some feats done in the name of fundraising can be straight up stupid. Case in point, we'll rewind to 2008 and head over to Paranaguá, Brazil. This is where a Catholic
priest was busy filling up a thousand helium balloons. Why? He was planning to break the 19 hour balloon cluster flight
record to raise money for a spiritual rest area for
truck drivers in Paranaguá. He'd made an attempt earlier
that year using 600 balloons, but it only managed to stay
airborne for four hours, and had drifted 16 miles
to San Antonio, Argentina. Convinced he just needed more balloons, the persistent priest, who
was an experienced sky diver, packed a flotation device,
five days of food and water, a thermal flight suit,
a parachute, a helmet, several cell phones and a GPS device. Seems like he thought of everything. Only thing was he didn't actually know how to use the GPS device. Not only that, when he was released, the weather was really overcast. So people on the ground lost
sight of him very quickly. He was planning on landing in Dorados, some 550 miles away in
more central South America. But the thing with balloons
is that they follow the wind. So without any way of steering himself, when a rogue gust of wind blew
the flying father off course, he was carried out to sea. Later that evening, perhaps realizing he couldn't work his GPS, he rang the military police who confirmed he was actually about 16 miles out from the islands of Tamboretes. And after that, they never
heard from him again. Clusters of balloons were found
in the ocean the next day. And three months later, the bottom half of the
floating father was discovered 62 miles out from Macaé. So what happened? Had he risen too fast, too
quickly and run out of oxygen when he got too high? Had the balloons failed and sent him crashing into the ocean? Had he been caught in a storm? It seems he didn't realize
he was that far out over the ocean until it was too late. And then crash landed. He might have survived for a
short time out in the water, but with his cell phones
and GPS water logged, not even he could have
survived three months out in the open sea. While at least in his final days, this priest literally got
a little closer to God. Which of these awardees do
you think was the real winner? And if you haven't already, be sure to check out the
other 11 parts of this series. Believe it or not, this
is still just the tip of the idiot iceberg. If you want a part 13, let me know in the comment's down below, and as always, thanks for watching.
