Sex Toys Make Lousy River Rafts

SYDNEY, Australia—Sometimes candidates for the Darwin Awards actually survive their own stupidity. According to news reports, an Australian man and woman, both age 19, recently decided to raft down the flood-swollen Yarra River. Their choice for a floatation device? A blow-up sex doll. (Yeah, that’s the first thing we would have picked too.) Apparently things were going swimmingly until the duo passed a tunnel and the female lost her toy in the violent waters. She was able to grab onto a tree, and her cohort stayed with her until help arrived in the form of a kayaker who brought them life jackets and a passerby who called authorities. Turns out the dolls reportedly floated away, never to be seen again. The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are “not recognized flotation devices.” Thanks for that warning, coppers. Image from Wikimedia Commons of the Bubble Baba Challenge, in which particiipants float down Russia’s Vuoksi River on similarly unrecognized flotation devices.