OK, it’s wrong to laugh at another’s misfortune. And the behavior in these circumstances doesn’t exactly seem…rude. But don’t you wish that more people answering their cell phones would find them suddenly bursting into flames?
I mean, you know, like at movie theaters. Or in class.
UPDATE: Oh, poop. The link requires registration. Here’s the money part:
New Paltz � Matt Erhorn was pumping gas into his car at the Route 299 Courtesy Mobil station at about 9:30 p.m. Thursday when he reached into his pocket and answered his ringing cell phone.
���With the flick of his “talk” button, Erhorn, a SUNY New Paltz student, received the surprise of his life.
���”He told me he answered the phone and the next thing he knew, there was this flash of flame,” New Paltz fire Chief Pat Koch recalled yesterday. Koch was standing next to the gas pump yesterday where Erhorn’s cell phone triggered a vapor flash that singed the hair on his left arm.
���Erhorn told Koch he flung the gas hose to the ground and ran. The night attendant inside the convenience shop, Mohamed Taiep, triggered the station’s fire suppressant system. In a second, Erhorn’s 1994 Isuzu and everything else under and beyond the station’s canopy was doused with a white cloud of fire-snuffing chemicals that made the station look like it had been hit by a snowstorm.
���Erhorn refused treatment at the scene and didn’t answer his phone yesterday.
If you want to know the technical part — why answering the phone set off the gas fumes — then go ahead and register.
Mindy said on May 18, 2004 at 5:54 pm
Oh, yeah! Too bad this didn’t happen in a restaurant or movie theater.
Today I saw the ultimate accident waiting to happen – an elderly guy driving an elderly Oldsmobile very slowly while he yakked on his cell. Heaven help us all.
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Dan said on May 18, 2004 at 5:56 pm
I saw a recent episode of Mythbusters on Discovery where they tried to use a cell phone to trigger a gas explosion. Even with ridiculously high concentrations of gas fumes in the test chamber, they couldn’t get it to go off.
I’m not surprised the victim didn’t answer calls from the press after the incident.
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Nance said on May 18, 2004 at 7:13 pm
They mention that Mythbusters thing later in the story. It’s not the ringing that causes the problem — it’s the answering. The demonstration only showed ringing.
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Michael G said on May 18, 2004 at 10:28 pm
Being behind a driver talking on a cell phone is bad enough. One day on the way to work I was behind a lady who dropped her phone. Then the fun started. Lordy.
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lawrence said on May 19, 2004 at 8:39 pm
Update to the story:The culprit is:
Static cling
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