Here’s the story: Burn Victims In Bellevue Car Fire Were Filling Gas While Driving
Yipes.
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Did any of them die?
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Did any of them become unable to have children?
Otherwise, they can not win the award.
Still, though, very dumb.
There have been a very few who lived and won. Lawnchair Larry comes to mind.
Still, the level of stupid is certainly Darwin worthy.
Interesting that someone would know how to remove an engine cowling and pour gas directly into a running carburetor but fail to imagine why this might not be a good idea.
Also that they wouldn’t think to cut the bottom off the water bottle, stick its neck into the gas tank nozzle, and pour the gas from the bucket through this improvised funnel, which is what I did when I found myself with an empty fuel tank, an open bucket of gas, and a plastic bottle.
How do people keep finding themselves with buckets of gas (I assume you poured it out of something else).
Hardly award winning but… The other day an acquaintance of mine was telling me that he bet his friend that he could drive a nail through a 2x4 faster then his friend could. Right off the bet, it’s usually safe to assume that when someone random makes that bet with you, there’s probably something going on. In this case what was going on what that he put a shotgun primer under friends 2x4 so as soon as the nail cleared it the primer went off. This acquaintance of mine is what I would describe as a 'good guy," very friendly, do anything for a another person, always willing to help out, handy around the house etc… but I swear his neck gets redder every time he opens his mouth.
At least it was only a shotgun primer and not a blasting cap.
The truck chuffed and gasped its way to the side of the road within sight of a gas station. I walked to the gas station, explained I’d run dry right over there, and asked if they had a gas can I could borrow, or else buy.
Sorry, no. We have no gas cans.
So I walked back to the truck, got the bucket out of the bed, back to the gas station, pumped some gas into the bucket, and back to the truck once more.
This is the part I thought was the best -
“One man made it to the gas station and tried to douse himself with water.”
He was on fire so he ran to a gas station?
Maybe a vehicle expert will show up, and I’m not one, but I find it really hard to believe there’s an engine design/installation with the carburetor between the driver and passenger seats, I thought there needs to be a big air intake and filter above it – that would seem to be a terrible location for it.
I wonder if they were mistakenly pouring gas into some other part of the engine or transmission?
I drove for a courier service in the 80s/early 90s and the vans they had(Ford Econoline, I think) had the engine cover between the driver and passenger seats. I never opened it to see what was actually accessible.
I learn something new every day. Here is a picture of a Dodge van exposed engine inside the passenger compartment, and I’m reasonably sure that’s the air filter on top and the carburetor would normally be just beneath it. I also found another story saying burned van was a Dodge, though not necessarily the same model.
The air filter and it’s housing pops right off with a couple of wing nuts (or bolts), not a terribly big deal. From there, you could pour gas right into the carb.
That’s exactly the vehicle I pictured. If you take the center off of those (I’ve taken it off of two of them, don’t remember what years off hand 89 and 95 maybe) you see the rear of the engine block. I don’t recall how far away the carb is from there, but I’d imagine if you sat on the floor you could reach it.
That site doesn’t seem to allow you to link directly to the picture. I’m pretty sure it’s the third picture down on this page —> Dodge B-series Vans: Sportsman, Ram Van, Ram Wagon, and Voyager | Allpar Forums
For me, the link in my post goes directly to the pic, and the link in your post goes to the page where I found the pic.
Yeah, it works now. I think it has to do with getting the right cookies from visiting the site before being able to view images alone, or something.
They were not only running the engine, they were actually driving the van? :eek: They should be in the other Bellevue (the psych unit) after such a stunt as that.
Ah… fool injection.
/internet