It's been dunnamany years since I did any abseiling. But others have tried ...

Below is a synopsis of a Darwin Award-winning prison escape attempt in the US a couple of years ago. The Darwin Awards, for those of you who don't know, are awards handed out to deceased people who have managed to remove themselves from the human gene pool in bizarrely stupid ways. The Awards are managed by one Wendy Northcutt who has a website at http://www.darwinawards.com. She has also published, I believe, two books' worth of award winning deaths, honourable mentions and urban myths on the subject. Well worth a read as well. This tale comes from the first book.

A prison in a new, high-tech prison decided that he could escape from it through a window if he managed to tie enough sheets together. He did quite well in that area, because he got enough sheets to make a "rope" that was about 100 feet long. Timing it just right, he smashed his way through a toughened glass window, tied off one end of his "rope" and flung the rest of the bundle out the window. Clambering carefully over the broken glass on the lower rim of the window, he trusted his weight to the sheets and began the perilous climb down. Unfortunately, that sharp glass was having an effect on his "rope", and his weight dangling below the window enabled it to cut through the sheet draped over the window frame. Our intrepid escapee fell to his death on the concrete below. Sad? Well, maybe. But one can't help but wonder what would have happened in any case even if he had actually managed to get to the bottom of the makeshift "rope". It was, as mentioned above, about 100 feet long. The drop to freedom was, unfortunately, 180 feet ...


The idiot also known as Capfka ...