A man who jump-started his car and tried to jump in the window to put the handbrake on is lucky to be alive, West Sussex rescue crews have said. The sous chef was trying to start the vehicle, early on Sunday, in the grounds of the hotel where he works. Fire teams said the car crashed into a garage, pinning him against the wall. The man was taken to hospital with a suspected broken bone in his back.

Police are not taking action because the incident happened on private land.

Fire teams used airbags and a crane from Crawley fire station to release the man after the accident at 0415 GMT.

The Gravetye Hotel in West Hoathly has confirmed the man works as a sous chef there, but has declined to comment further.

A spokesman for West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said: "It was a really, really stupid thing to do. "He is lucky he's not dead." The spokesman said several other people were at the scene and there "appeared to have been a lot of alcohol involved".

Submitted on 01/01/2006

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: news.bbc.co.uk, 1 January 2006

Copyright © 2006 DarwinAwards.com

James said:
Neutral: Honorable Mention
Maybe vehicle crushing is too common, but I haven't heard of anyone trying to jump start a car with a) the car in drive, and b) the intention of setting the handbrake AFTER THE FACT by jumping through the window. Of course, the alcohol may be a factor, so this may get zapped anyway, but I find that even mildly drunk one can remember simple things like putting the car in "park" and leaving the door open in case one has to jump into it...

Greg said:
Maybe Toss: Other
I can see what happened here. I suspect copious amounts of alcohol is the only possible reason he would have jump-started the car in gear. This being a UK story, the gearbox was almost certainly manual (or "stick shift") and it is common (indeed, recommended) practice to leave a parked car in 1st gear. Sounds to me like in his innebriated state he forgot the car was in 1st and lunged to try and stop it before it demolished the garage! Alcohol being the MAJOR contributing factor, I'm not sure.

Jack said:
Neutral: Honorable Mention
We haven't had a good injury while working on a car submission in a while, so I'm going to vote to keep it. And I will remind my fellow moderators that some of our better stories have included alcohol...

Jason said:
Neutral: Honorable Mention
I actually consider alcohol to be one of the finest additons to these types of stories. We say that alcohol-related incidents are too common, but sometimes they do give us a good example of stupidity that is more than appropriate. This one is a keeper.

Jorge said:
Maybe Toss: Lacks Excellence

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