How close have you got to a Darwin Award?

As I get older and more aware of my mortality I sometimes muse on things which might have done for me in early in life. Quite a few, but I think one of the stupidest thing I ever did was (at the age of nine maybe) was to get one of those plastic caps for toy pistols, stick it in on the end of a nail, mount in an empty .303 cartridge case, fill with gunpowder from bangers, crimp the top of of the case about the nail, rest the assembly on the top of a wall and hit the top of the nail with a hammer. The bang, my Dad told me in the course of a difficult interview afterwards, was reported to the police . Miracle was that although there was a crater in the top of the wall and bits of brass embedded elsewhere I was unscathed. I couldn't see what the fuss was about - I was 'doing an experiment'.

Anyone got closer?

Robin.

We lived in a town up the hill then down to main street and up the next hill to high school. One afternoon I decided to help myself with my fathers Hudson pickup of 1947 to attend a woodwork class. My father was asleep, he was a steam locomotive machinist as they called them and worked any hours.
As I go down the hill towards the only robot in town, there was a VW beetle at the stop red robot. Getting closer I pushed the brake, and then -nothing-, I completely forgot about the handbrake, and steered the Hudson like you suppose to fly a plane till it strikes ground, past the VW and pavement right over the road, luckilly a car just passed up the hill till the Hudson stopped.
I turned around and slowly drive back without brakes to home. Long story short, the brakefluid pipe weared through on the engine block/ sump beneath. My mother helped me replacing the pipe, bleed the brakes and when my father went to work, the Hudson was going again. It could have been him on a different route to work and a real accident, I was just lucky. About a week later he was informed, he was surprised and impressed with the repair. The Hudson could have flattened the VW Beatle, I know because you can stand on the mudguards and lft the engine. My father had a Hudson car 1941 as well, bought this pickup on a nearby town for 10 dollar and repared it, h used it mainly to drive to work about 3 Km's away every day. That was then.
So far I was lucky to have an car accident free life not to say it cannot happen.
I still clearly remember it today.

The best bang I ever heard was one of those railway detonators going off in the kids toilet at school

He'd been chucking it against walls and hitting it with half bricks until it was a mangled lump of metal but finally succeeded at setting it off around lunch

edit: Those big red empty calor gas canisters on a bonfire were always pretty entertaining

Edited By Ady1 on 12/02/2023 02:23:14

My brothers pal jumping off one of those huge railway cutting walls for half a crunchie

Then lying there on the deck with a broken leg demanding his reward

When I was 15 I started work on the railway as a 'box boy', I kept the train register in the signalbox, polished the brass, ran errands and generally learned about railways. One morning, just as the newspaper train from London was propelling back into the yard, I heard a shout. The shunter was riding on the leading vehicle, and he threw a bundle of newspapers towards the signalbox, which landed in the four foot of the line nearest the box. "Great, we've got some newspapers", I said to the signalman. "Go and get them then", he said. I jumped up, remembered that a passenger train was just approaching the station, looked at the clock, booked it in, then ran downstairs and... jumped into the path of the train I had just booked in.

I can still see the driver's face now, he looked horrified as he blasted the horn at me. I jumped backwards and he missed me by a few feet.

I retrieved the newspapers and went back upstairs, shaking like a leaf. The signalman was laughing, saying, "You won't do that again, will you?".

John.

When about 13 my friend and i were told about sodium chlorate and sugar by an older boy . We emptied our parents shed and kitchen of the ingredients and mixed them into an innocuous pile and lit it with a match (at arms length luckily ) the resultant explosion just put a big smile on our faces and we spent the whole summer making rockets etc.

our mothers couldn’t understand where all the sugar was going and after the sodium chlorate was all gone so was our pocket money buying new supplies from garden shops.

Hi Robin a thoughtful thread! Err yes almost the same , I had found this casing in my Father's Engineering parts, closed at one end and thus it was filled with carefully cut red you caps, the firing pin was filed , from a flat roofing nail, worked incredibly well , the noise was deafening, I can still hear the ringing! But not my Father's words expressing his annoyance....for it was a quiet Sunday.I abandoned that experimentation when it flew past me to close for comfort...

However after seeing plans for a canon, I wondered if the garden tube could work... Embedded in the ground, this it did if secured... A little demon banger dropped in supplied the force, meanwhile corks were raining down on the neighbourhood! In order to work out high they went, one counted 1001 ,1002 ect...before the impact noise was heard.

My attention then turned to the rear gatepost, which had a bigger diameter ! A heavier object was found and tested with multiple little demons ( bangers), a count was made , cripes it did go high, then impact, oh the elderly Mr Partridge's garden shed roof! Unfortunately he was still in it at the time, and he kindly old gent returned it to me ...saying by he had survived one war and did not want to be in another... That concluded the experiment! Experience is a slow teacher.

Vic

Well apart from being a "frequent flyer" at casualty as a child/teenager I had couple of memorable incidents.

I was using a medium sized propane burner in a workshop above the garage. Probably melting lead. Anyway I lowered the burner to about knee height and there was a gentle "woof". A sea of flame covered the woorkshop and I waited for the bang as it burnt down to the foor. The bng never came. I was wearing Denim jeans and was completely unhurt. The leak was from a cut in the hose. I've often wondered how close it was to an explosive mixture. A draft. or me walking across the workshop might have stirred it enough.....

Then there was the accident with a pneumatic antenna mast in Jordan. Classic accident "Swiss Cheese" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model )

The mast was surplus and had existing sheared fastners
The pressure gauge had failed so I could not balance the load ( the pressure relief was working and correctly set).
The mast had been left in a unusual condition (by someone else who had been told not to touch it).
We were all tired after weeks of long days and late nights getting the car ready
I was distracted halfway through the task to do something more urgent.

Result was the 100mm dia by 3m long top tube antennas and radio head unit were launched 50ft in the air. I know it was 50ft because I watched the cable uncoil, go tight and then start piling up again. I obviously had the mast vertical because the tube came down right next to the base. I was on a ladder and the tube came between the base and the ladder. This resulted in injuries to both hands inclding amputation of the end of one finger therough the bone. We were 200km from the nearest hosptital so I had a trip in a military helicopter, a short stay in hospital and a lifetime reminder...
There was one safety precaution I didn't take that day. Normally I put the ladder right against the base of the mast and tied it off. This was to stop it slipping. I could not do that on the day because a large piece of equipment had been left at the base of the mast. The ladder was about 200mm from the mast. The tube landed in this gap, right where I would normally have been. I was inches from being skewered..

Robert.

Edited By Robert Atkinson 2 on 12/02/2023 11:20:46

Chemistry at Secondary School: Melting zinc metal into a tiny crucible - about 25ml - to cast an ingot to look at crystal structure. When the zinc was all liquid, it was to be poured into a small steel tube in the fume cupboard to solidify.

In the back of my mind, I remember thinking that I should hold the tube over the bunsen burner first to make sure it was bone dry before I poured the metal. But I didn't, and when I poured the metal, the minuscule amount of moisture that WAS in the tube instantly vaporised and blew the molten zinc out all over my face and neck..........

Literally only a moment before, the chemistry teacher had told us that we should all be wearing safety googles. So no damage to my eyesight, thank goodness, and actually not much damage to my face either.

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 12/02/2023 17:46:43

Me and a neighbor launched an arrow straight up in the air. Had it good and plumb by eye. It came down about 1 foot from Him. No aerial balloons then. Last attempt also.

I sawed a railway detonator open to find out what was inside.

Dunno if the yellow colour is significant in the example, but mine was red,

The case is two parts of pressed steel crimped together. The straps were lead strip but I can't remember how they were fixed to the base. Inside, 5 or 6 grams of loose black powder and a Mazak ring with 5 nipples each fitted with a copper percussion cap. Much more powerful than a 'Banger' firework.

After it was apart I realised that the chance of hacksawing into one without setting it off were almost nil. Gunpowder ignites at very low temperature and is friction sensitive. By chance the saw just missed two percussion caps as it cut through the ring.

Stupid rather than brave. Aged 14 I was convinced I was immortal. Now I'm not quite so sure...

Dave

We often grumble about excessive H&S these days, but things like this do make you think.

Edited By Mike Hurley on 13/02/2023 09:37:10

Rebuiilding a substantial greenhouse (6m x 4m) I had bought and dismantled. Steel T section primarily with the panes of glass sitting either side of the tail to the tee.

I was up a step ladder with a pane, roughly 0.5m x 1.5m and juggling it into place to go up through the gap between the two Ts and then to sit in place.

Glass decided it wasn't going to sit in place, dropped down, hit the top of the step ladder, exploded and one large piece removed a small piece of skin on my knee - which bled like fury. another few inches and it would have bled rather more...
Put the remaining panes in another way after that - and after some time spent in contemplation....

When I was stationed at RAF Stanley in the Falklands in Jan 85, boredom was a problem, we worked 6 days a week and had to be ready in case Argentina decided to try again. Going through our stock of aerosols of dye penetrant and developer we found a lot that were well beyond the best before date so we decided to experiment with them. Our section had a large minefield behind it and on the edge of that we had an incinerator consisting of a 50 gallon drum with holes punched in the sides. We lit a nice little fire inside the drum and then proceeded to drop the out of date aerosols into the fire. After a short period of time the aerosols would explode with a loud thud and the debris from the cans was propelled about 50 feet skywards, needless to say we kept our distance to avoid the shrapnel that was caused.

Another incident happened one sunny day when it was very quiet and peaceful, adjacent to our section was a ground equipment workshop and positioned adjacent was a port a cabin block of toilets. Every three months the base was subject to a three day exercise when we all adopted a war posture and played soldiers. During these exercises to make them seem real plenty of thunder flashes were used; one enterprising young airman managed to squirrel one away and kept it for use later, definitely a practice that was frowned upon. Well on the day in question there was an almighty bang which came from the portacabin toilets, he had set it off in the toilets, and because it was in a confined space the noise was deafening, everybody was galvanised into action thinking we were under attack from Argentina, it quickly became apparent that it was a one off explosion and the culprit was soon identified, the roasting that he got from his Warrant Officer was something else, I think he behaved for the rest of his time in the Falklands. Dave W

I have been caught many time by a curious effect, so as a friend once called it, "complifying" basically simple problems into the most awkward, least efficient and in model-engineering, non-prototypical, solutions.

'

The worst I've done though would certainly be Darwin Award material.

It could have killed me.

I made an abseiling "descender" based on the then-new and now-common type sold for the purpose. A descender is a sort of brake acting on the rope reeved through it in a particular way - you still need control the descent by a hand tensioning the rope below it.

This new type was replacing what is called the Figure-of-Eight Descender: an 8-shaped, double-ended ring machined from a single piece of aluminium-alloy plate. I had made one of those, from a 3/4" thick blank band-sawn to outline by a friend who supplied it to me, and I had used it safely for a few years.

Developments in techniques were now rendering the Fig-8 descender useless and obsolete in caving.

(The same developments also led to industrial rope-access work; by a few cavers realising the commercial applications for their hobby skills and equipment - a sort of reverse to model-engineering that adopts industry to a hobby.)

.

The replacement descender's basic form is two grooved "bobbins" fixed rigidly between two aluminium plates swung open to allow weaving the rope round the bobbins; then clipped closed.

I duly rigged my shiny new handiwork, then luckily one of my mates spotted the design flaw....

The descender is attached to your harness at its lower end; and the bobbin type's upper end has a pin to keep the rope closely round the top bobbin.

Without that retainer the rope would slip out of the upper bobbin groove, losing most of the braking effect. You'd plummet to the floor rather than abseiling sedately, under full control.

The flaw?

.... I had failed to spot that last detail, so had neatly rounded the side-plates' ends to match the bobbin. The device had nothing to keep the rope fully reeved!

I scrapped it, and bought a properly-made one....

Never did like heights....

.

As a teenager , and as teenagers do, we were in my friends shed, making gunpowder! We were getting really good at making rockets, consisting of thin layers of gunpowder laid on "treated" newspaper, rolled up and placed inside a discarded kitchen roll tube with stick attached. Of course, performance depends on the quality of the gunpowder, and we were searching for the finest mix! We had been tipped off (I believe by my father!) that the perfect mix was obtained by rubbing the powder between two sheets of glass. As we were very safety conscious, we were preparing the powder in small batches, which were then stored in plastic margarine tubs (without lids) on a shelf that ran round the inside of the shed at about head height. During a rather enthusiastic session, the powder ignited, and sparks jumped from pot to pot, all round the shed, filling it with dense white smoke and giving us the impression of being inside a roman candle. Lightly singed and choking, we beat a hasty retreat, and marvelled that the shed actually did not catch fire. My friends father forbade all further launches!

Phil

It all started with repurposing of the contents of bangers ! Then the startling reverlation that mixing weedkiller and iceing sugar would make a loud bang ! Remember the miniture gas bottles for sparklet syphons ? Along the way calcium carbide and an old 350 velo magneto had also upset the neighbours. 2 years chemistry improved my understanding No end, and now I'm 17. By grinding the chlorate in a pestle and mortar and minor adjustments to the recipe resulted in the mixture now being so sensative that it would fire by precussion ! A steel cap(type) bomb was made, the concrete door step seemed a good anvil, BUT I had forgotten the balcony above, the projectile nearly got me ! We're on a roll now and I have a welder and machineshop scrap is readily available. 1" round bar made good projectiles, some tube and a bit of welding soon formed a mortar launcher, range - about 300yards. and it only needed a tiny amount of propellant. Bombs now had welded casings and sometimes 1.5Lb of filling ! Getting safely away was easy - I had developed a slow burning fuse- about 1"/minute. Thank the Lord shortly after I discovered girls - - - Having driven from age 12 it was about this time that I bought an Austin Champ and carried on causing mayhem..

Always willing to help I tried to save a fishing vessel in a F8 gale, The chances were not good and I knew it but still carried on - I got a lift in a helicopter !

I go cold thinking of some of what I got up to, I feel guilty about the vast amount fo good luck I had, that rightly belonged to others. Noel

I'm "pleading the fifth" on chemicals, railway equipment and pyrotechnics

It is worth noting that apart from safety, many of these activities would now fall foul of new laws with serious penaties if you got caught.
Even owning some items or materials that were OK and uncontrolled several years ago can now get you a conviction.

Robert.

I get the feeling many older chaps are in favour of wild-west behaviour simply because they were lucky enough to away it! And having got away with it they fink nothing bad comes of yahoo stupidity, horse play, or slack Alice corner cutting in the workplace.

Several casualties during my childhood slowed me down slightly. I learned it can happen, and does!

• Toddler drowned in fish pond during garden party a few doors away.
• Neighbour's child suffocated in an abandoned fridge (old-fashioned locking door). Some b*stard had dumped it to save himself trouble.)
• Boy in my year drowned swimming unsupervised (in Malta)
• Boy in my class blinded in one eye by friend firing a miniature needle-pointed arrow at him with an elastic band. (They were a craze!)
• Friend of a friend killed ramming the bullet into a home-made gun charged with weedkiller
• Older brother of a friend killed lying flat on the railway whilst an express passed over. Something must have been dangling...
• Boy in my year had an eye popped out of it's socket during horse-play. Reinserted in hospital, no permanent damage
• Member of canoe club drowned shooting a forbidden weir. (We weren't allowed within 250 yards of it.)
• Boy in class knocked out, blood everywhere after being hit by a wire tethered model aircraft. Week in hospital, and was still having headaches when I lost touch years later.
• Classmate run over and killed delivering newspapers one dark morning
• Boy in next county killed by lightning whilst Javelin throwing. (Teacher in charge: 'a bit of rain never hurt anybody '
• Younger boy lost finger in woodwork class
• Lab technician retired unfit for work after dropping a bottle of Bromine in the sub-basement stairwell

All before I left school...

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 13/02/2023 14:52:50

And then there is scary but perfectly safe.

The name is lost but there was a Professor of Chemistry at one of the universities, Oxford I believe, who was superb at public lectures complete with demonstrations. One concerned a 5 litre flask and a jar of large pieces of Sodium under oil. The Prof would explain that as Sodium was highly reactive in contact with water it was always kept under oil as he lifted out a very large piece explaining for that reason should never be touched with bare hands as he calmly placed it in his palm, unless that is you have very dry hands. Audience stops cringing and then dives to the floor as he throws it into the flask after saying you should never throw it into water. Nothing happens, audience climbs back into their seats as he goes on to say that of course in Alcohol it’s perfectly safe.

regards Martin