SillyRabbit,Jet fuels for JETS 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
This story actually took place in or around March of 1983,but it just goes to show that Darwinites have been around for a LONG time... At that time I was a sailor stationed aboard the USS M-----,operating on station somewhere in the north atlantic sea.Like most navy destroyers of the class,we carried a small stock of JP-5 aircraft fuel.Our ship's mission was such that we didn't much need it, but we were required by regs to have it on board.It should be noted that,as a safety measure,every shipment we received came with a case of test-samples (of the same batch) in glass ampules.
Enter now our Darwin nominee,my ship- mate Barry ("Call me 'Bear',man) Riekes.Well, Ol' Bear didn't really have very many hobbies, but one of the few he had was chain-smoking(We once caught him smoking while he was brushing his teeth,but that's another story). But it happens sometimes,on long cruises, that our shipboard PX runs out of things the men might want-In this case,sadly,that 'want' happened to be lighter fluid...
So Bear decided to wander down to the stores hold and 'borrowed' just one of the test samples of JP5 fuel.(Fortunately he was at least smart enough not to light up down there) He even thought to wait until he got outside to a weather deck,where I ran into him.That's where he told me what he'd done, and lit one up to celebrate his own cleverness. Needless to say,that fuel worked even better than he thought it would.About a foot better, actually.I can say it was quick thinking that saved him,as a third sailor with us grabbed an emergency life-vest out of a nearby deck locker..He kept hitting Bear in the face with it,smothering the flames.
Bear actually got out of it with very minor injuries.The incident surprised all of us--Leastways,Bear looked surprised for all the time it took for his eyebrows to grow back.
Submitted on 05/15/2002
Submitted by:
Connor Clark
Reference:
16-May-2002
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