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Darwin Awards
2008 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
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Furnace Folly

2008 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

The names of those involved have been changed to protect the innocent……….

Several years ago a couple bought an old house that had been built in 1910 and I’m convinced that the furnace was just as old. Over the winter, the furnace died about once a week and ‘Jon’ would have to go down and take apart the coupler that was forever getting dirty and shutting the furnace off.

One evening, ‘Jon’ and his wife ‘Lisa’ were on the couch watching TV when Jon noticed that the temperature had dropped…again, so the furnace needed to be cleaned…again.

So Jon headed down to the basement to “converse with the furnace.” while Lisa stayed upstairs bundled in blankets happily surfing the TV channels. When seconds later………BANG!!!!!!!!!!

Lisa threw down the remote, vaulted over the coffee table and sprinted for the basement door. Upon throwing open the door, black smoke billowed out followed by what sounded like a frenzied swearing coming from Jon.

Minutes later Jon clumped up the stairs and Lisa got her first glimpse of him. His face and shoulders were covered in what looked like black soot. He pulled his glasses off to reveal a raccoon face that had eyelashes and eyebrows singed off and one side of his head actually had the hair melted together in certain spots (to which the barber raised an eyebrow in question, but only received silence and a dirty look in return).

What happened was in the time that the furnace shut off and Jon got down to re-light the furnace, the gas was still on being contained underneath the furnace. When Jon opened the little door to re-light the pilot light, the gas had one place to go upon ignition, right back out the little door into Jon’s face that was right next to the open door in order to see better…

Since then we have moved (you guessed it, Jon’s my husband and I’m the lucky gal married to him….) and we are rid of that old house. ‘Jon’s hair, eyelashes and eyebrows have since then re-grown.

Submitted on 05/16/2008

Submitted by: Me
Reference: Personal Account

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Awful? 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Great?
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>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Jon is probably very lucky he wears glasses or he could have ended up blind as a result of this temperamental furnace. Thanks for a great story, Lisa.


Graham said:
Neutral: Personal Account
This sounds like a scene from "A Christmas Story". However, our intrepid DIY man is lucky to be alive!


Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
LOL! I love it! And a very well told story. I'm glad your husband didn't wind up seriously injured, and I'm glad you're in safer living quarters. Thanks!


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