Alcoholism is a disease. But being a Shmuck? Well, there’s just no excuse for that. And if Robert “Ice Man” Evans ever gets his knuckle head out of his dumb ass, he probably won’t be able to offer one.
Evans, a homeless alcoholic who lives in and around Boulder and, periodically, the Boulder County Jail, amazed police, health-care workers and the general populace earlier this week when he managed to be struck by both a car and a train within a seven-hour period. Amazingly, he survived both mishaps with only minor injuries.
Evans’ day began with some begging on the corner of Arapahoe Avenue and 28th, where he held a cardboard sign. That evening, as we was riding his bike along 47th Street, Evans was hit by a car. He managed to pick himself up, though, and ride to the hospital, where he was treated for minor scrapes and bruises. Then it was off to Taco Bell to beg for some free tacos and the liquor store for a dose of liquid pain medication.
In the wee hours of the next morning, Evans, 46, was walking along a train track with his bike when he saw a slow moving coal train with its lights on heading toward him. Evans kept walking, though. "I seen it coming quite a ways," he told the Denver Post. "I thought I could beat it." He couldn’t and he didn’t.
A railing on the side of the train hit Evans, launching him ten feet through the air and into Boulder Creek. A train engineer helped him up and fished his bike out of the creek.
The police later issued Evans a trespassing ticket while he was in the emergency room at Boulder Community Hospital, getting treatment for broken ribs and a head injury. "I hope he goes and buys a lottery ticket today, because he's the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," Boulder police sergeant Jim MacPherson told the Post. "It's an extreme oddity that someone is hit by a car and a train on the same night. I can't imagine that this has ever happened before in Boulder."
Nothing too unusual for the Ice Man, however.
Evans apparently has five drunken-driving convictions, the Post said, and earned his nickname two years ago when he was ice fishing in Nederland Lake. Evans’ beer cans exploded that day, dumping their precious contents all over him. The Ice Man refused to move until he caught another fish, however, and his booze-soaked pants froze to the ice. Firefighters later freed him by pouring buckets of hot water on the ice.
What a lucky Shmuck.
For previous Shmucks, check out our Shmuck archive.
