THE HERALD (Glasgow, UK) 06 January 07 Idiocy awards for camper who picked up two adders on Arran (Mark Henderson)
A man who nearly died after being bitten by two adders he picked up for a photo opportunity has been given an honourable mention in this year's Darwin Awards.
The annual Darwin Awards "salute the improvement of the human genome" and honour those "who accidentally remove themselves from it . . . ensuring that the next generation is one idiot smarter".
Robert McGuire, 44, a father of six from Saltcoats, was on a camping holiday on Arran when he was bitten by the venomous snakes which caused a potentially fatal allergic reaction. His tongue swelled to the size of a fist.
He had scooped up the smaller male adder, believing it to be a grass snake, before spotting the female snake slithering in the undergrowth. As he grabbed the second snake, both adders bit him and he collapsed 20 minutes later.
He was given emergency treatment by an air-ambulance paramedic before being taken to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock and admitted to intensive care.
Soon after the event, Mr McGuire said: "I got the shock of my life. I did not know there were any poisonous snakes on Arran. Even the doctor said he had never heard of it."
Doctors told him that his thickset physique helped him survive as the venom would have taken longer to have a lethal effect. He said: "They even said they might have to amputate my arm . . . but thankfully it didn't happen. Then I saw my face in the mirror and I thought: my God. It was swollen up."
On their website, the organisers describe the reasons for Mr McGuire's nomination.
They say: "A hiker in Scotland picked up a grass snake so his brother could take a picture. Just as he reached for it, a black serpent slithered into view, so he grabbed that one, too. It was a black adder, Britain's only venomous snake. Both reptiles sank their fangs into the 44-year-old, who responded with serious anaphylactic shock. He gradually and painfully recovered in the hospital. His excuse for his rash act? He didn't think venomous snakes inhabited the whole of Scotland."
One of the entries who joins Mr McGuire on the honourable mentions list is a safety teacher in California who used a live shell as a paperweight and decided to use it to squash an insect crawling across his desk.
He killed the bug but also set off the explosive, causing him burns and shrapnel lacerations on his forearm, hand and torso.
Winners of the awards do not always live to tell the tale.
An electrician from Belize died after flying a kite with a copper string during a storm, while a Brazilian was killed when he tried to dismantle a rocket-propelled grenade by driving over it with his car. That failed so he used a sledgehammer, causing an explosion.
A man who nearly died after being bitten by two adders he picked up for a photo opportunity has been given an honourable mention in this year's Darwin Awards.
The annual Darwin Awards "salute the improvement of the human genome" and honour those "who accidentally remove themselves from it . . . ensuring that the next generation is one idiot smarter".
Robert McGuire, 44, a father of six from Saltcoats, was on a camping holiday on Arran when he was bitten by the venomous snakes which caused a potentially fatal allergic reaction. His tongue swelled to the size of a fist.
He had scooped up the smaller male adder, believing it to be a grass snake, before spotting the female snake slithering in the undergrowth. As he grabbed the second snake, both adders bit him and he collapsed 20 minutes later.
He was given emergency treatment by an air-ambulance paramedic before being taken to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock and admitted to intensive care.
Soon after the event, Mr McGuire said: "I got the shock of my life. I did not know there were any poisonous snakes on Arran. Even the doctor said he had never heard of it."
Doctors told him that his thickset physique helped him survive as the venom would have taken longer to have a lethal effect. He said: "They even said they might have to amputate my arm . . . but thankfully it didn't happen. Then I saw my face in the mirror and I thought: my God. It was swollen up."
On their website, the organisers describe the reasons for Mr McGuire's nomination.
They say: "A hiker in Scotland picked up a grass snake so his brother could take a picture. Just as he reached for it, a black serpent slithered into view, so he grabbed that one, too. It was a black adder, Britain's only venomous snake. Both reptiles sank their fangs into the 44-year-old, who responded with serious anaphylactic shock. He gradually and painfully recovered in the hospital. His excuse for his rash act? He didn't think venomous snakes inhabited the whole of Scotland."
One of the entries who joins Mr McGuire on the honourable mentions list is a safety teacher in California who used a live shell as a paperweight and decided to use it to squash an insect crawling across his desk.
He killed the bug but also set off the explosive, causing him burns and shrapnel lacerations on his forearm, hand and torso.
Winners of the awards do not always live to tell the tale.
An electrician from Belize died after flying a kite with a copper string during a storm, while a Brazilian was killed when he tried to dismantle a rocket-propelled grenade by driving over it with his car. That failed so he used a sledgehammer, causing an explosion.
Idiocy awards for camper who picked up two adders