From dphillip@mail.usyd.edu.au Tue Jun 10 15:48:16 1997
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 10:05:16 +1000 (EST)
Subject: don't try this at home kids.... (fwd)

> This is a true story.
> ---------------------

> <yeh, right...>
> 
> And you ask where the modern-day adventurers have gone . . .
> 
> DARWIN AWARD WINNER FOR 1997 ANNOUNCED!!!!!!!!
>
>     You'll recall a Darwin Award winner not long ago where a former
>     airforce sergeant decided to strap a cargo plane rocket booster to his
>     car to see how fast it would go and ended up killing himself (hence
>     the "Darwin" award...in the struggle for survival only the fittest
>     survive....) when his car didn't negotiate a curve in the road in
>     northern  New Mexico where he had set up this experiment.  The car
>     smashed into the side of a cliff several hundred feet above the
>     roadbed.
>
>     Here's the 1997 winner:  Larry Waters of Los Angeles.  Larry is one of
>     the few to win the award and still be alive.
>
>     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, brightened up.  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 bolloons, when fully inflated,
>     measured 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 that 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 where 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 for Larry.  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 of 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 when he
>     found himself in the primary approach corridor of LAX.
>     A Pan Am 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.  Right on Larry's heels was the helicopter.  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, with which he was hauled back to shore, a difficult manuver,
>     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 airsapce.  As he was led away in
>     handcuffs, a reporter dispatched to cover the daring rescue, asked him
>     whay he had done it.  Larry stopped, turned and replied nonchalantly,
>     "A man can't  just sit around."
>     Here's a salute to Larry Walters, the 1997 Darwin Award Winner.


*dave
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www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~dphillip/           *  david phillips
www.cs.su.oz.au/~davep                dphillip@mail.usyd.edu.au       
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