By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

A firearms mishap two years ago has yielded less-than-coveted recognition for a Saline County shooting victim, courtesy of the Darwin Awards.

For 13 years, the Web site www.darwinawards.com has chronicled accounts of bizarre deaths and injuries, immortalizing tongue-in-cheek those who "improve" the human gene pool "by removing themselves from it."

The Internet site created by author Wendy Northcutt has become a cult favorite with its homage to people such as the unfortunate owner of a wood-chipping company in Maine. He attempted to unclog his company's jammed wood chipper -- while the machine was running.

Honorable mentions go to those who survive despite their idiocy.

The award, named after Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, has been compiled into a series of best-selling books, and Volume 4, published this month, includes a Salina contribution first reported by the Salina Journal.

The tale told is of a Delphos man who two years ago was wounded in his groin by bullet fragments from a .22-caliber bullet. At the time, the then 27-year-old man told a Saline County sheriff's deputy he had set off the shell by shooting at it with a pellet rifle while the shell was laying on a picnic table. The man underwent surgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

The victim isn't identified by the authors of the Darwin Awards. The publication typically tries to shield its subjects and families from the embarrassment of direct public ridicule.

Saline County Sheriff Glen Kochanowski says that to this day investigators still don't know the full story what happened, even though they doubt the man was wounded in the manner he said he was.

"He never cooperated with us. I don't even know today where he's at," Kochanowski said. "That's the only story we have."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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