Edward Archbold, 32, collapsed after winning the repulsive contest at Ben Siegel Reptile Store. Archbold, who was competing for a free python, was stricken outside the Deerfield Beach business, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators reported that Archbold "wasn't feeling well and began to regurgitate" shortly after the contest's conclusion. "He had consumed dozens of roaches and worms," a sheriff's spokesman noted.
Archbold was pronounced dead after being transported to an area hospital. An autopsy was conducted, and the Broward County medical examiner is awaiting test results to determined Archbold's cause of death.
Archbold is pictured above in a mug shot taken in 2004, following his arrest for disorderly conduct and indecent exposure (for which he was convicted).
Another promotional piece referred to the upcoming event as "the soon to be infamous 'Eat Bugs For Balls Contest.'" The python for which Archbold competed is known to curl up into a ball as a defensive reaction.
In a Facebook update yesterday, the store stated that, "Although we just met Eddie the night of the sale, we all liked him right away. All of us here at Ben Siegel Reptiles are sad that we will not get to know Eddie better, for in the short time we knew him, he was very well liked by all."
Asked about the python won by Archbold, the store reported on its Facebook page that, "The snake is being held in his name and is full property of his estate."
Again, Only in Our Ol' Floridy Home
The lawsuit will come from the DQ (Disqualification) for Vomiting... That would (UN)naturually force someone to keep down, in the alimentary canal, a thing which it would otherwise naturally expel. (People used to die from it all the time at drinking "contests.") If venired, I would find my crudely gluttonous neighbor fully culpable, whilst extricating from liability the store.
We humans are interesting (understatement) critters.
And as much as I love good souls and most good critters, I've always detested cockroaches, (if you've not lived in the subtropics or tropics, you have NO idea) and have always - and long before MIB films - felt that they serve no ecological niche here, but instead arrived in a pestilence of the type thereafter later discussed by Astronomer V. Clube (sp?) as per LKJ.
Like so many, I love individuals, but Humanity, seen en masse - never ceases to repulse.
R.C.
* Some friends at the space center had a SUPER-X/GAMMA-RAY projector, used to seaarch for microscopic cracks in rockets. (WAY more ionizing radiation exposure than Hiroshima & Nagasaki together.) Well they put one of our local roaches in there (about 2" long, as I recall), for X time, and he/she came out just fine.
R.C.
P.s., As it turns out, there was an error involving Aramaic/Greek/Latin/Egyptian/English, in translating The Bible, which resulted in the word for Cockroach being interpreted as 'meek.' (Just kidding.)
RC