There are millions upon millions of websites in the world. There are fun sites, sad sites, informational sites (like this one) and weird sites.

But I want to take note of one of the more informational/weird site, and I’ll start like this:

Worldwide, 5.4% of deaths are causes of accidents. 2.3% of the causes of death are transport accidents, while the remaining 3.1% are other types. Most of the time, the deaths are pretty tragic, but seldom is it funny. In fact, there are probably LOTS of stupid deaths, so someone needs to catalogue them!

Of course, you could always use Wikipedia’s list of unusual deaths, which divides them into time periods, but a more well-known example are the Darwin Awards. The Darwin Awards are given to people who died in dumb ways. The site’s own summary says:

The Darwin Awards honor those who tip chlorine into our gene pool, by accidentally removing their own DNA from it during the spectacular climax of a ‘great idea’ gone veddy, veddy wrong.

It is funny, and perhaps a little insensitive, but let’s read off the more absurd ones, shall we?

• 2017: A Japanese worker in a warehouse had a problem; namely, he couldn’t change a lightbulb that was 40 feet off the ground when his forklift’s max height was 8 ft. What would you do in that case? The answer is to stack a bunch of wooden pallets reaching 37 ft. high, get on top of the stack, and convince your friend to lift you up, of course! The tower fell and he died in the wreckage.
• 2006: A man named Darren in England was found dead with multiple stab wounds to his chest. At first, it was suspected to be murder, but there was no supporting evidence. Eventually, his wife revealed that while she was away on vacation/holiday, Darren wondered aloud if his new jacket was stab-proof. He grabbed the blade and tested it…while he was still in it. I mean, what was he expecting? The jacket WOULD be stab-proof and he wouldn’t have gotten a spot on the Darwin Awards site?
• 1997: A man named Wayne Roth in Pennsylvania was bitten by a cobra that belonged to his friend. In almost every case, the person bit would immediately get to a hospital ASAP or sooner. But Roth decided to go to a bar instead, saying “I’m a man. I can handle it.” He bragged about being bit by a cobra, but within a few hours he died. Yet another case of death by overconfidence.
• 2002: A man named Jackie Chambers in Kansas had his vehicle break down on I-35. He couldn’t fix his vehicle, so he decided to call for help, and he stood on train tracks. Next to an oncoming train. You can probably guess what happened next. To add more stupidity, the train conductor saw Chambers with a phone to his ear, but he cupped his other ear to block out the sound of the oncoming train!
• 2010: A handicapped man in South Korea was enraged that an elevator he was going to go in closed at the last second. So, dangerously not paying to his actions, he rammed his wheelchair once into the elevator, no use. Twice, still no use. Third time, and… he broke through the doors and fell down the elevator shaft. The death was so remarkably dumb, it was given the legendary title of “Darwin Award of the Century”!

For one thing, it was easy to laugh at these deaths. For another, its even easier to laugh at a whole database of them, at www.darwinawards.com (note: the site has not been updated as of 2022, but who cares? Death accounts go as far back as 1994, for Pete’s sake!)