File this under: Worst. Cockring. Ever. We've been trying to figure out whether or not the guy in this story merits a Darwin Award. On the one hand, he didn't wind up killing himself, which is the usual criteria for "winning" a Darwin; on the other, he may have removed all possibility of reproduction, which is just as good in the long run. It seems that the Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport Beach, California, had to call in a Search and Rescue squad from the local fire department to cut through a steel dumbbell collar—the thing you put on the end of the bar to keep the weights from sliding off—that had been stuck on a man's penis for two to three days. By the time he got to the hospital, the man's penis had blackened and swelled to five times its normal size.
Most incredibly, the man at first refused to have the ring removed, saying cryptically, "This will make me the chief of my tribe." He apparently believed that the weight from the steel collar would make his penis longer. Instead, it blocked the flow of the blood out of his penis so that it swelled so large he couldn't take the collar off. It took two hours of careful sawing through the ring for firefighters to cut through the inch of steel. A watering system had to be constructed so that sparks from the blade didn't fly across the room as it cut through the one-inch steel ring. Costa Mesa Battalion Chief Scott Broussard said that the operation proved the skill of the city firefighters' skills: "If we're cutting people out of some kind of building, or if we're cutting right up next to somebody's flesh and don't damage his flesh, then it's a good day," he said. No word yet on the patient's condition, or his chances for adding to the gene pool. If nothing else, he at least deserves an honorable mention in the next round of Darwins.