Meet one of the greatest Darwin award honorable mentions of all time. He lived, despite his blundering stupidity, and therefore is ineligible for a proper Darwin Award.
While mowing the lawn in front of his newly purchased mobile home, George Fath of Pleasant Lake, Indiana found a .22 caliber bullet in his yard. Concerned for the safety of his young sons, George proceed to do something incredibly stupid.
“My hammer was outside so I took the bullet and put it on a rock and smacked it with the hammer,” Fath told reporters with Channel 15 News. “It went off and went into my belly and knocked me on my butt.”
Outside of a chamber, a live bullet usually won’t go very far if the primer is struck. The brass casing however, that can explode like an industrial fire cracker. In this case the casing was trapped by the rock and the hammer, so the bullet took the majority of the explosive force and traveled into Fath’s abdomen. Fortunately for Fath the bullet was relatively ineffective without a chamber and barrel to concentrate the force of the blast.
“I smacked the bullet and fell down and blood came pouring out,” Fath said. “I was hitting it to smash it. I didn’t expect it to go bang. I wasn’t thinking about it. It was the dumbest thing I ever did in my life. I suggest nobody do it.”
Steuben County Sheriff Rick Lewis agreed with Fath’s assessment and suggest that no one ever attempt to dispose of a bullet by smashing it. “Call local law enforcement and we can take car of it,” Lewis said.
Watch Fath’s hilariously terrible interview in the video below. We have no idea why the reporters used stock footage of a .40 cal hollowpoint instead of a .22 lr.