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Cross-country drive on 2 gallons of gas
NEW YORK, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A North Carolina woman was the runner-up for the 2009 Darwin Award, the first female to contend for the honorific recognizing stupidly fatal behavior.
Coming in second for the tongue-cheek award, the woman tried to flee from police custody during a flash flood by jumping into a swollen creek, the organization said in a news release. An officer tried to rescue her, but to no avail.
She was in custody because she drove right past the officer and a roadblock, lost control of her moped -- and fell into the creek.
Placing first, though, was a pair of robbers who couldn't do the math on the amount of dynamite needed to blow open an ATM in Dinant, Belgium, and really overestimated the amount needed. Both died.
Named in honor of Charles Darwin, father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those "who improve our gene pool -- by removing themselves from it," the Darwin Awards Web site said.
The award, the site said, is "generally bestowed posthumously."
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