Saturday 1 May 2010

Darwin Award - Junior Category

A 14-year-old boy was killed instantly after stepping on to an electrified rail line to pick up a cigarette lighter.

Elliott Ives, who was wearing wet clothes, stepped off the platform at a railway station and onto the live rail.

A terrible tragedy, and a reminder that no amount of warnings and safeguards will ever prevent people doing stupid things.

At least this time there's no-one to blame except the boy himsel...

Wait, what?
Coroner David Horsley said: 'Elliott has died not because of anything anyone else has done but due to unforeseen circumstances of trying to get a lighter or lighters from the track. I don't think he appreciated the danger that was there.

'I am concerned there are things left on the railway track that could be an attraction to children. I think more should be done to clear them up.'
He was 14! And a human being, not a magpie! Who on earth could have foreseen this?
Elliott's mother Michaela Nichols, 38, said her son was a fun-loving boy. He said: 'He could not understand dangers. You could tell him something and two minutes later he would do it again. They need to clear rubbish off the railway.'
I'm sorry..? You've admitted your son was an idiot incapable of learning, yet it's still somehow the fault of the railway..?

Good grief!

14 comments:

Shug Niggurath said...

This isn't just a British problem, but it is, I think, a part of the 'cult of the child' that has developed. Where people wont say no their children, where the responsibility for teaching them has been devolved to the state for not just learning about literature but learning to read at all.

When the state assumes ownership of your life it becomes easier and easier to devolve all responsibility to the state, and then, by extension nothing can happen that the state should not have prevented.

Think of the children truly is the worst excesses of the state laid bare.

Anonymous said...

Another preventable smoking related death. We must ban smokers from carrying lighters.

ASH UK

Joe Public said...

Oh please have some sympathy.

The poor lad had been through schools that have had all 'risk' assessed out of their activities. His local authority might even have chopped down avenues of horse chestnut trees to eliminate the risk that a conker may fall on the road and a child be then tempted to retrieve it.

'Climbing' was as adventurous as going upstairs (note the safety hand rail).

No pun intended, but it was an awful shock to discover the real world is not encased in cotton wool.

Ironic wv = bless

KenS said...

Elliott's mother Michaela Nichols, 38, said ... 'He could not understand dangers. You could tell him something and two minutes later he would do it again.

So why did you let him out unsupervised?

Gibby Haynes said...

The flow of electric charge a.k.a electricity is dangerous. We should ban it. For the childrens.

I should probably stop baiting electrified lines with things that fascinate retards (butane lighters, Doctor Who episodes, Ugg boots &c.) but if I did that IU'd hardly have any amusement at all.

Indyanhat said...

The judge was right the railway lines do need cleaning up...scorch marks left by careless children are extremely offensive to the eye!
Perhaps we could get paedophiles to give them a little rub with a damp rag, especially as they are rumoured to like doing a little grooming.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

How is it we could tell from the first few lines of the post that the mother's surname was not the same as the 'child''s?

I'd like to add that 'Coroner' David Horsley is a lying perjuring piece of filth who should die with a rope round his neck.

Apart from that, I've no strong feelings on the matter.

Foxy Brown said...

At 14 you're apparently too young to understand the dangers of sauntering along live rails in damp clothes, but old enough to receive free condoms at school.

microdave said...

By the age of 14 I was fully aware of the dangers of electricity - I got my first "belt" off the mains when I was eight!

But I wasn't mollycoddled and protected from risk, I took chances (as most kids did then) and found out that electricity hurts, just like excessive heat, and inadvertent application of hammer to finger...

Anonymous said...

But he was 'fun loving ' so it was alright. Well sort of.
Perhaps they should turn the elecricity off till the train gets there. I bet nobody has thought of that.

JuliaM said...

"...it is, I think, a part of the 'cult of the child' that has developed. Where people wont say no their children, where the responsibility for teaching them has been devolved to the state for not just learning about literature but learning to read at all."

I can remember at my junior school having a railway worker come in to tell us all about the dangers of playing on the railways, with some really quite harrowing accounts of what happens when electricity meets the human body.

I wonder if they still do that?

Probably not. Someone would undoubtedly complain that this was far too 'upsetting' for their little (X-Box playing) lamb...

"No pun intended, but it was an awful shock to discover the real world is not encased in cotton wool."

Quite! And that takes us back to Shug Niggurath's point. The State is doing us no favours, is it?

"I should probably stop baiting electrified lines with things that fascinate retards (butane lighters, Doctor Who episodes, Ugg boots &c.) but if I did that IU'd hardly have any amusement at all."

Heh!

"At 14 you're apparently too young to understand the dangers of sauntering along live rails in damp clothes, but old enough to receive free condoms at school."

Good point!

JuliaM said...

"Perhaps they should turn the elecricity off till the train gets there. I bet nobody has thought of that."

I bet if you put a petition up on the No 10 site, some clowns would sign it!

Longrider said...

That's a new definition of unforeseen that I've not come across before.

Still, he has voluntarily removed himself from the gene pool. Harsh? Yup, but fair.

Anonymous said...

This site is full of low life trolls thinking they're funny. You see an article from a newspaper and jump to conclusions. The problem is you all have your heads so far up your own ass, that your incapable of having any sympathy at all. The boy you're all bad mouthing is my brother and if you didn't just jump on your high horses after reading one article about him then you'd think different. If you knew the whole story of our lives then I think your view would be totally different. Hmmm.. Maybe not you would still all pick out small faults. Stop to think when you bad mouth a person who has died online because the truth is there family will most likely come across your disgusting comments. And let's all hope none of you will ever loose a child, brother etc as the pain is unbearable and then having to see such horrendous comments made about them and most importantly a child!! is even more unbelievable. As for the person who wrote the article. You are vile, carry on with your perfect excuse of a life, and I hope Karma bites you on the backside! As to you all.