And the winner of the Darwin award goes to…
We’ve all done our fair share of dumb things that could have ended much worse, but what this Detroit man did just goes so far beyond dumb it’s hard to find the right words to say.
While working at the gas station early one morning, a clerk named Susan Adams saw a man pull up to a pump and begin fueling up.
“He didn’t have a cigarette. He didn’t have anything on him, so all of a sudden I looked out and I see flames.”
Somehow, a fire broke out at the pump, setting both the man’s car and the pump ablaze.
Susan hit the gas automatic stop button and called the fire department, while the man was able to grab a fire extinguisher to put it out before firefighters arrived, but what the heck happened?
Eventually, the man fessed up.
He told authorities he spotted a spider near his gas cap, and because he’s very afraid of them, decided to kill it by trying to burn it with a lighter.
What he didn’t think of was the stream of highly flammable gasoline pouring into his tank about an inch from where the spider was, and as the news anchor said, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next.
The gas fumes immediately caught on fire and started spewing out of his car. The man then grabbed the handle and threw it to the ground, where the fire expanded rapidly, engulfing the entire pump. Somehow, his car was barely harmed, but the pump was charred beyond repair.
After everything was calmed down, the gas station workers began doing some overdubs of the security footage, which I highly recommend watching in the video below, it’s super funny.
Plus, the reaction of the guy they interviewed shortly after? How golden was that?
“Is that serious? Is that serious?!”
Susan said the man came back the next day and was apologetic, but more or less continued on like nothing happened.
Some people, man…
Fortunately he wasn’t hurt or worse and everything turned out alright, but my goodness what are you thinking using a lighter literally on the gas nozzle?
