Scary reminder of what CAN happen!!!!!!!

[resq302]

While I was working the police desk yesterday, I took a couple 911 calls for this.  We had to end up sending our first aid squad there mutual aid.  Just a scary reminder to us all who work on our own cars.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20110202/NJNEWS14/110202046/Two-injured-explosion-fire-Parsippany-tire-store

[elacruze]

Call me un-politically correct, but that is simply Darwinism at play.

Doesn't every repair begin with 'disconnect battery'?
Doesn't every protocol including common sense say 'don't have fuel in open containers'?

I guess I should expect that somebody had to run to and back with a fire extinguisher since obviously nobody held a thought before the event.

No sympathy here.

[resq302]

Well, from what I heard talking to a buddy of mine, it was the mechanics own personal car he was working on.  Not trying to defend the guy but how many times have we cut corners or said, nah, that'll never happen to me.

[elacruze]

True, but never with fire.

Gravity is constant, you can take a calculated risk with hydraulics and jackstands etc. And you can set up so you get a second chance to catch it before being crushed.

Fuel is made to burn, and it will any chance it gets. No calculated risk there.

[resq302]

True, but never with fire.

Gravity is constant, you can take a calculated risk with hydraulics and jackstands etc. And you can set up so you get a second chance to catch it before being crushed.

Fuel is made to burn, and it will any chance it gets. No calculated risk there.

Well, by your reasoning, fuel is such a generic term.  Wood can burn too but it just does not spontanously combust unless you add an ignition source to it.  There is always a source of fuel, oil, wood, plastic, etc.  Pretty much anything can burn, even metal!  So, unless you are in a vacuum in space, there will always be fuel.  In order to have fire you need three things.  Technically four, but the three basic things are oxygen (can't remove unless we want to die), fuel source (be it gasoline, wood, plastic, paper, etc) and an ignition source (spark, torch, flare, electrical resistance, friction, pre-existing flame, etc).  Im sure Ron on here can agree with me that the easiest way to extinguish a fire is by removing the ignition source or heat by cooling it or interupting the uninhibited chemical chain reaction.  Sorry, had a flash back of firematics there from college and firefighter 1 class. 

So technically, not ALL fuel is made to burn.  Perfect example is dropping a lit match into a puddle of diesel.  Match will go out.  Diesel FUEL only ignites when it is compressed and has an ignition source, hence the reason for glow plugs instead of spark plugs.

Sorry to get all Mr. Wizard on everyone.

[elacruze]

Erm, you left out Nuclear FUEL. Fission and Fusion are not 'burning'.

Ever seen diesel fuel hit a red-hot turbocharger?

goodnight, Irene.

[twodko]

Resq302, I love it when you talk all the fire stuff. 

[resq302]

Twodko, heres one for ya.......BACKDRAFT!!!!!    ok, sorry, couldn't resist.    Just got an update.  The two people who were injured both had burns.  The mechanic that was working on the car has been released from the hospital and the other mechanic who tried to help with the extinguisher has burns over 30% of his body.  He's in for a long and painful recovery.

Hopefully Ron can chime in here and give us his perspective.

[Wicked72]

they should read the directions......it says to unplug the battery before doing anything....well thats what ive been told anyway   

[451-74Charger]

http://www.wcpo.com/gallery/news/news_photo_gallery/your-photos-capture-the-truck-explosion1296756299345

Illustrated

[71ChallengeHer]

That's a shame/ Nobody deserves to get hurt. 

[1969chargerrtse]

Last year in Seymour Ct a guy was working under the wife's car.  It fell on him and crushed him to death in the driveway.  No one knew?  The daughter comes home from college and sees dad not moving and crushed.  Very sad.

When I was working on replacing my fuel tank and filling and draining it to adjust the gauge position I was so worried about a tiny spark.  That stuff sucks.

[DAY CLONA]

Call me un-politically correct, but that is simply Darwinism at play.

Doesn't every repair begin with 'disconnect battery'?
Doesn't every protocol including common sense say 'don't have fuel in open containers'?

I guess I should expect that somebody had to run to and back with a fire extinguisher since obviously nobody held a thought before the event.

No sympathy here.

Agreed!.....that fire was a case of Redneck Ignorance

[A383Wing]

So technically, not ALL fuel is made to burn.  Perfect example is dropping a lit match into a puddle of diesel.  Match will go out.  Diesel FUEL only ignites when it is compressed and has an ignition source, hence the reason for glow plugs instead of spark plugs.

no ignition on diesel systems..all it takes is compression and heat....glow plugs do not ignite the fuel..all they do is warm up the chamber to get the heat started up faster for cold starts.

back on topic...sorry to hear about the guy, but it was his own fault

[orange383]

Well thanks for posting. It's good to be reminded once in a while that safety comes first. I am an ex-mechanic and I have forgotten once before to disconnect the battery. No drama but I could have kicked myself when I realised.

[NHCharger]

"A second employee attempted to douse the blaze with a fire extinguisher, Paul said, but instead the force of the discharge knocked over a tray containing gasoline from the gas tank, fueling the fire and triggering the explosion."

Wow, that's what I call a Three Stooges moment. We've all had those one time or another. It's a shame those guys got burned. I have the quick disconnects on the Chargers. Unless I'm changing a tire or doing an oil change I take the extra minute and disconnect the battery. I work alone in the shop 99% of the time, you can't take any chances.

[resq302]

Orange and NH, thank you!  That was basically my whole point of posting this that we are human and make mistakes.  I know I sometimes rush stuff and skip safety steps because I don't think it will happen to me.  There has been sometimes I look back and say, "wow, its a good thing I took that extra step or I wouldn't be here now"  or "damn, I guess I should have put that still jack under the car for the 2 seconds I was working on the brakes."  There has also been times where my wife has called me upstairs for something only to go back down and get back to work thinking I did a step when I actually forgot it.

Lets face it.  Stuff happens and this was just an eye opening reminder.

[Magnumcharger]

Back in 1993, I was an EMT trainee and doing my preceptorship at an Emergency Room.
An ambulance came in with a burn victim.
I was given the task of removing what was left of his clothes, and skin. He was perfectly awake and in no pain. This often happens with third degree burns.
I asked him how it happened. This is what he told me:
He had an old car passed down to him by his father (the original owner). It was parked in the garage connected to the house. He lived alone in the country, miles from town.
It had a drip coming off the gas tank, and he thought it prudent to drop the tank to get it fixed. Problem was, the tank was full and needed to be drained.
He put the car up on axle stands, crawled under with a bucket and his trouble light.
He disconnected the fuel line and let it drain into the bucket. When the bucket was full, he reconnected the fuel line.
While dragging the bucket out from under the car, it sloshed...on him...and the trouble light.
And everything went up.
He ran outside and threw himself into a snow bank, and watched his garage, car and house burn to the ground.
Luckily, his neighbour saw the flames and came over to see what was going on.

I don't know if he lived or died. But it was the worst burns I'd ever seen on a person.

[64dartgt]

I was always worried about dropping a car off a jack, so I got into the habit of putting whichever tire (the spare or the tire I just took off, with just a minute during the switch) under the car.  Sure enough I had a bumper jack pop out of the slot on a 64 Olds Cutlass I had...the car dropped right onto the tire and I was able to easily jack the car back up.  Of course the rim wasn't aluminum LOL.

We lost Mark "The Bird" Fydrich this year in Northborough.  The poor guy was working on his dump truck with it running.  Details are scarce, but apparently his jacket got caught in a rotating assembly of some sort choking him to death.  He was a really nice guy.  I met him a number of times at the diner his Wife's family owns in town.  So there is something else to watch out for.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4065778

[six-tee-nine]

Well if you are used to work on engines on a daily base like me then I catch myself on doing that also..... I sometimes think : c'mon moron turn off that engine before the sleeve of your jacket gets in that fan belt.....

The more you are used to do any kind of handling the more you will start to ignore the danger. Most people dont get injured when doing something for the first time. They end up dead or in the hospital when they were doin it for the 10.0000th time....