I Should Have A Darwin Award!

Hangar Flying
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Yeah, we have a LOT of bears. Have door cam video of one that climbed a flight of stairs (up to our front porch, about 20 steps) and wandered around.

My wife NEVER sees them, but I do all the time. Think it’s a man vs woman thing (hunter, gatherer?, I dunno).

She comes into the living room late one night and starts stammering, 'bbbbbb big…bear…big bear!". I’m like, “yeah right, you never see them”. There was a huge one (for here) at the bottom of the front stairs. I chased him off but he did give me that over-the-shoulder look of, ‘sure, but I’ll come back and eat you later’. Or that’s how I saw it :slight_smile: They are getting too ‘comfy’ IMO. I have some rubber buck shot that, along with the noise, keeps them honest.

They all know when trash night is too :frowning:

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Then there’s that HUGE gator that grabbed my kayak a few years ago, but I think I’ve told that one. It was the suddenness of it that still gives me a lil spike in the chest :slight_smile: A 10-footer, conservative. Kayak only had a single tooth mark on it. Still there.

In the end, I LIKE that these things exists.

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Nasty. We have had an invasion of Lion fish here.

Maybe Darwin-lite? I was snorkeling for lobster once. Pried one out from a ledge then was starting back up when I see a beer can. This was the pull-tab days.

So I quickly decide to do my part, and pick it up as I headed topside. Just as I’m about to grab it the Moray eel that was calling it home decided to show itself. I poked the cans after that.

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I’m amazed it fit in that can. It wasn’t big but appeared to be bigger than would fit [in there]. I had gloves on (made it easier to grab the lobster) but still, those teeth.

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Anyone coming to northern Australia (north of Bundaberg, I’d say) should know the 15 rule around waterways - stay 15 metres from the waterline, and move every 15 minutes. The idea is this limits your exposure to crocodile attack by keeping you far enough away from the water you’ll have time to react if one charges out of the water, and not being there long enough for one to do a sneaky move up to where you wouldn’t expect them on land. Or even better - don’t go near waterways at all without a local or a guide who knows what they’re doing :+1:

15 metres is 50 feet, to people from countries who landed people on the moon (using computers that calculated distances in metric units :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

We do meme it up about how dangerous it is here, but crocs are the one thing that will definitely kill you. They’re not alligators. They’re alligators on steroids with a meth addiction.

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Now THAT, for some reason?, is freaky, to me.

I’ve been around Alaskan brown bears, close-like, and that gator incident (I don’t think gators are as aggressive as ‘crocs’, just what I hear). But the thought of something laying there, waiting for you to get close, to eat you. Shivers. Maybe its just what you’re used to?

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It’s definitely what you’re used to. The problem is nine times out of ten you’ll be fine, but it’s that one time… and people have a natural tendency to want to sit right at the waters’ edge if they don’t understand the danger.

And most places in Australia you don’t even need to think about it, just in croc country (north of Bundaberg in Queensland, Broom and north of that in Western Australia, and everywhere you’re likely to go in the Northern Territory).

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Or just @Victork2 being Victork2… :wink:

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Worst I ever did was try to pass a semi truck on the right in a Florida downpour on I-95 going uphill on the overpass.
Rain coming downhill + rain coming down + water on road + water coming from under the truck into the lane = 450 degree spin impacting guardrail and totalling the Honda.
But at least I didn’t A) hit the truck, B) go through the guardrail and over the side of the overpass, or C) get hit by another car in the lane behind me or behind the truck. The spin was more or less fixed inside the lane until I slowed enough to get traction at which time I was facing the guardrail, not the main highway, and hit it at a relatively slow speed compared to the speed I had been going. Also had the benefit of going uphill to bleed off speed.
Impact was just enough to bend the left front a little bit, combined with setting off the airbags made the insurance total it. They gave me $30k, so they thought the damage was over that, which surprised me.
Within literally 2 minutes of the crash the rain subsided, leaving just wet roads.

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29

I have tried to get the award for years. Motorcyle wrecks, Car wrecks, Women who were wrecks… You name it. So I had to think long and hard about how to give you my golden Darwin moment.
I was about 11. I had a Daisy Red Ryder. It was the old boring one. It was black and worn but it was good enough for me. But when my neighbor came by with a gold Daisy Red Ryder…Uhhhhhhh, It had the Scope too. I had to ask if I could use it. He said yes and when I said i was going to the beach, he just waved me off. There was this rock you see… The crabs would sunbathe on it. Between them and my rock was a hole at the bottom. My rock slated 45 degrees towards it. The waves would come and water would gush out that hole like a volcano. When it subsided, I would shoot at the crabs. On a good day, I would kill 10 or 12. But today I had a scope. I noticed how much more accurate it was and how I was quickly getting some kills. Back then, conservation was a word only used for gasoline. As I inched forward, I stepped on the algie that was on my rock. A boy knows nothing about target fixation. In a sec I was on my butt and slid down into the hole that the waves came in and out of. The water lifted me and then sucked me down threatening to suck me under the rocks where I would probably get my scrawny ass stuck and down. Only the rifle got stuck on both sides and by holding on with all my might I managed to hold on. The next time the wave heaved me up I pushed and heaved and fought like hell against the sharp and awful rock. But I went down again. On the second time up, I pushed against the rock with my feet then spun around and crawled. I had rocks in my knees a torn fingernail and cuts on my hands and face. But I was alive. I had to throw the rifle to save it, that really messed it up.
It was a long walk home and I was a mess. I begged my uncles not to tell my grandma… It was too obvious that I was in bad shape. I was afraid she would beat me (again). I was always getting in trouble. Instead she made me tell the whole story. She made me tea. She patched me up and told me that that would teach me not to mess with the crabs. When I think about it now, she liked me best when I did the stupid things.
P.S. I had to get a paper route to pay for the rifle. It was a wreck too.

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I was in my 30s. Training MMA 3 times a week. One of the strongest grapplers of my club. I tell coach I’m ready to take to the ring, do it for real. Sure thing he says, I’ll go about finding you a match.

Matchmaking is a thing in fighting. You want a fun match, so the fighters need to not only match in weight, but also in skill and such.

So he found me a guy. German dude. Call him mr. S. I look at footage of mr. S. Work my game plan. Visualise. Train hard. First fight is the toughest.

A week or so before the match, I get a shoulder injury. Torn ligament. Doc tells me he can shoot me up and I be good to go, but it would stay fooked for life. So I say thanks and cancel the match to let it heal naturally.

Fast forward a month or four. Mr. S. is up for another go, do I want it? Sure I do. I work up to the fight again, this time no injuries… except two weeks before matchday, my knee gets hit in a way it did not like. I tape it up and keep going.

Come match day, mr. S. has declined the match for reasons. Will I take an alternate? Sure. Alternate is the match chosen for a clubmate of mine (call him J.) who gets another guy. Now J. is the meanest motherlover in the club. He’s the one who fooked my knee, and my shoulder before. He can not go easy. So when I realise I get the fokker they chose to match up with that psycho b’stard J., I start feeling the fear.

I stare at the sky, touch some grass and continue getting taped up and prepped. My music sounds and I hop into the ring. All fear becomes sharpness.

Ref says go, and I duck a punch. Duck another. Block a kick. Grab a hold. Now it’s my turn. I quickly get the takedown and a dominant position. I carefully and steadily start working on a submission.

I never got the submission, but the takedown and continuous grappling domination (in judo we’d call it osaekomi) won me the match. Against the guy who they’d initially matched against J., the one guy in my team who I did not like sparring me because it hurt. And I won. I was fook’n invincible.

Fast forward another six months or so. Coach calls me, do I want to take a match on short notice? It’s next week and it’s mr. S. Sure I say, despite having not trained nearly as diligent as I could have.

Match day comes. He’s a bit over weight, problem? Naw man, I don’t mind if he’s a couple pounds heavier, I’ll wtfpwn him. Oh and coach can’t come, but J. will be your corner. F. It, sure. Whatever. Let’s do this!

I get taped up. My music is played. I hop into the ring. I look up. In the other corner is a absolute unit of a tatted-up, completely ripped kickboxer. Lean, at least a head taller than me. Mean looking motherlover. Not mr.S. Oh dear.

Bell rings. I have been working on my boxing (with little to show for it, I never learned the sweet science past the merest basics) so I feel I need to show it off to coach. Do a little boxing before getting to my strong suit of grappling.

I jab the big guy on the chin. I feel it connecting. Lights go out.

I wake up in the changing room. People are fussing over me. My neck hurts. My head too. What happened? Why can’t I remember the fight? Who won? Oh he did?

L. was in the audience and filmed it. I did not properly cover up. Tattoo guy took my puny little jab on his chin, and turned me the F. right off with a right hook to the temple. I go down like a sack of potatoes. On my way down, I get kicked in the head not one time, but two, because dutch kickboxer guys is really good at that sh t.

I spent the next two weeks in bed. Something broke in that KO, and I got migraines when training (or working) too hard. I tried to work through it, but after a month or two, I hung up my gloves. My MMA fighting days were over.

For years, those twenty seconds have filled my nights. What would have happened had I held my left up? What would have happened had I gone for a clinch and takedown right away? Or taken a more defensive stance and countered an attack with a wtfawesome bit of jiujitsu?

So taking that fight, and going through with it despite all the bad, bad omens in the lead up to it, that is my darwin award moment. In fact, the sh tty little trophy they gave me for “2nd place” reminds me of my hubris and the end of my MMA career every day.

This was the song I entered the ring with, my fighting song:

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Your grandma was golden!

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Christ that’s intense! You’ve talked about your MMA past but never about the injury (that I can recall). That’s a world I could never imagine visiting. I’ve had my a** kicked a couple of times and enjoyed not a second of it.

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Reading this thread makes me feel my life has been rather dull. I can only recall two times where I could have gotten my cranium ventilated but thankfully didn’t.

First time was as a pre-teen when I was gifted a single-shot bolt-action .22 rifle. My dad and I were out in the woods somewhere plinking and I held the rifle with the butt on the ground and the muzzle up in the general direction of my head. It was unloaded, but my dad quickly grabbed it and told me never to do that again. He demonstrated by filling a coke bottle with water and telling me to imagine that it’s my head, then of course shooting it. To this day I’m still cautious about my muzzle even when dorking around with airsoft guns.

Second time was after my dad got his concealed carry permit. I really don’t understand why my fellow Americans think such a permit is sufficient for sefl-defense because the permit classes have absolutely zero tactical training and everyone treats it like an amulet, but I digress. He had a small pocket blaster, a Sig P238 or something similar, in the armrest compartment of his car. One day we’re in the car and he’s rummaging around in that armrest compartment for something. I look over to see what he’s doing to find myself seeing copper down a very short barrel as the handgun had been shifted around in all his rummaging…which could have inadvertently put pressure on the trigger and left my brains all over the ceiling of his car.

It seems his muzzle awareness lessons were more effective on me than they were on himself.

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Ooof! Both of those made my blood run cold a bit.

Agreed on your point re: pistol permit. It’s not even training, really, simply a brief class about interaction with law enforcement, and very very basic shooting. I’m fine with that being all that’s legally necessary, but it’s certainly not sufficient from a training standpoint.

(For those who don’t know: handguns don’t belong un-holstered, or in gloveboxes with other items. The holster is the basic safety of the weapon and is fundamental, much like a sling on a rifle.)

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As an NCO, particularly a SNCO, I was often called upon to run a range practice.

I loathed heading down to the 25m range to be OIC Practice for a bunch of HQ REMF’s who had to re-qualify on the pistol.

The number of times I have lost my shite with a soldier (and even an Officer or two) and told them to “get the ■■■■ off my range and don’t come back until you can keep that pistol pointed in a safe direction”

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Had ND’s almost hit me 3 times in my years as a full time instructor for my agency. None of them were cadets, they were too scared to be that stupid. All three were people doing stupid things they shouldn’t have been, where they shouldn’t have been while I was assisting with other people’s classes. Got shot(ricochet) in training once, but that wasn’t really anyone’s fault necessarily.

I intentionally set up my classes to be either cold all the time except when i tell you to, or we’re hot all the time so act like it. Only had one ND and it was fired into the berm while on line with the rest of the student dry firing. Guy came in late and didn’t check in, but the way the class was structured it was about as safe an ND as you can get.

Stopped allowing the class to line up without 100 of the students present. Need to step off line for a phone call, we’ll all wait for you. Group dynamics being what they are didn’t take long in most classes for people to put their phones of silent. I used have about 1500 students a year, along with multiple cadet classes every year. So 1 ND out of that for 5 years I felt was pretty solid.

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I wonder if I ever told y’all about the time one of my German Army comrades almost shot himself (twice).

In short:
We were all lined up at the range to shoot the P8 pistol. It was sort of a quick draw exercise. You had to walk around and then targets would pop up and if they were armed you had to shoot them quickly, if not you had to warn them (and still shoot them if they didn’t comply). We had to do that so we could be qualified for guard duty.

One of the guys decided that in order to be able to shoot more quickly, he would ignore the rules and unlock his gun while walking forward.
The ground on the range wasn’t exactly smooth though, and he stumbled shortly thereafter. For reasons only known to him his finger was on the trigger, and he shot good old mother Earth, roughly 30cm (one foot) in front of his own foot.
He was so shocked that he pulled the trigger again, once more shooting the ground, before the range safety corporal punched him and took the weapon from him.

I was a good distance away from him at this point, but I could still very clearly hear the officer in charge scream at him: “<soldier’s name> GET OFF MY RANGE!”

Needless to say: He wasn’t qualified for guard duty.

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These stories are reminding me of the range scene in the Pacific where gunny tells off a fresh LT.

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You add a compelling point in favor of the modern PDW concept for rear echelon personnel. :grin:

That’s genius, great example of risk mitigation.

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Having grown up with firearms I would be the wrong person to supervise a range session with newbies. I’m not sure it’s a great idea doing this in large groups initially. But I was never an instructor.

The ‘culture’ of respecting & handling dangerous things, among others, started fading to my recollection a long time ago (likely long before then :slight_smile: ; it’s all relative).

I grew up in the suburbs. A couple of high schools had gun clubs. We had firearms in our cars (or trucks; I couldn’t afford a truck of any vintage) - and no, you couldn’t carry them into the school without permission. Why would you need to?

It wasn’t the ‘good old days’. Far from it. It was just a different - Culture.

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