RE: Darwin Award

["Pickett, Bruce D" <Bruce.Pickett@PSS.Boeing.com>]

The official Darwin Awards web site ( http://www.darwinawards.com/ ) lists that one as being an urban legend.

Bruce Pickett
Seattle, WA
bruce.d.pickett@boeing.com

> ----------
> From: 	Mercado, Don[SMTP:don.mercado@lmco.com]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Thursday, July 08, 1999 8:08 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	FW: Darwin Award
> 
> Hmmmm....  Anyone heard more on this? Urban legend? How about it neighbors
> to the north.....
> 
> > AND THIS YEARS DARWIN AWARD WINNER IS.....
> > 
> > THOMPSON, MANITOBA, CANADA.
> > Telephone relay company night watchman Edward Baker, 31, was
> > killed early
> > Christmas morning by excessive microwave radiation exposure.
> > He was
> > apparently attempting to keep warm next to a
> > telecommunications feed-horn.
> > Baker had been suspended on a safety violation once last
> > year, according to
> > Northern Manitoba Signal Relay spokesperson Tanya Cooke. She
> > noted that
> > Baker's earlier infraction was for defeating a safety
> > shut-off switch and
> > entering a restricted maintenance catwalk in order to stand
> > in front of the
> > microwave dish. He had told coworkers that it was the only
> > way he could stay
> > warm during his twelve-hour shift at the station, where
> > winter temperatures
> > often dip to forty below zero. Microwaves can heat water
> > molecules within
> > human tissue in the same way that they heat food in
> > microwave ovens. For his
> > Christmas shift, Baker reportedly brought a twelve pack of
> > beer and a
> > plastic lawn chair, which he positioned directly in line
> > with the strongest
> > microwave beam. Baker had not been told about a tenfold
> > boost in microwave
> > power planned that night to handle the anticipated increase
> > in holiday
> > long-distance calling traffic. Baker's body was discovered
> > by the daytime
> > watchman, John Burns, who was greeted by an odor he mistook
> > for a Christmas
> > roast he thought Baker must have prepared as a surprise.
> > Burns also reported
> > to NMSR company officials that Baker's unfinished beers had
> > exploded
> > 
> > 
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