Darwin says, "Accepted into the Archive."

(13 October 2008, Germany) Smoking kills... if you try hard enough.

A 42 year old man was badly injured by his air mattress one morning. The previous night he had inflated the punctured mattress with a tyre repair spray which, like all solvent-based aerosols, is flammable. Furthermore, he did this while keeping the windows tightly closed in his loft apartment. The next morning, this airhead lit a smoke before he opened the valve to deflate the air mattress. The resulting explosion wrecked most of the furnishings, part of the roof, and blew a window from the wall. The damage was so severe that a structural engineer condemned the flat. Narrowly missing a "full-blown" Darwin Award, our hero was taken to a burn care unit, and managed to survive this incident.

Smoking kills ... if you try hard enough.

Another snippet from german news from me:

This morning, a 42 year old man was badly injured while trying to repair a punctured air mattress.

To accomplish this he inflated it using a tyre repair spray which, of course, is intented to be used with tyres.

Furthermore, he did this in his loft-apartment and kept the windows tightly closed.

What's the difference between tyres and air mattresses? For one, once inflated there's no real need to deflate tyres even if they're not used.

You already might have guessed it ... this airhead lit himself a smoke while waiting for the gas to do its job and was still puffing happily away when he re-opened the valve.

The resulting explosion wrecked most of the furnishing, unroofed part of the building and blew a window from the wall. The damage is so severe that a structural engineer had to condemn the flat - not the whole building, though.

As for the man ... he was taken to a special care unit. There still is hope for a full blown (no pun intented) Darwin.

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TRANSLATED BY BABELFISH.ALTAVISTA.COM http://www.presseportal.de/polizeipresse/pm/65858/1281098/kreispolizeibehoerde_wesel

13.10.2008 | 14:55 clock POL-WES: Moers - man after explosion heavily injures

Moers (ots) - this morning it came against 10.55 o'clock in a multi-family house at the Hirtenweg to an explosion, with which a 42-jhriger mortar was heavily injured.

The man had tried in the attic dwelling to repair a defective Luftmatratze. When it let filled in repair gas leak out before again, a dangerous formed air/gas mixture, which probably from the cigarette, which the man caught fire smoked at the time. Not only a majority of the furnishing was destroyed, but also taken off by the following explosion approx. ten square meters of the building roof. Beyond that the force of the pressure wave pressed a window from the wall framework.

Investigations of a stress analyst led to the result that the dwelling of the mortar is uninhabitable at present. After first polizeilchen investigations a total damage to property of approximately 100,000 euros developed.

The 42-Jhrige suffered heavy burns and had after emergency-medical lead-in supply with an ambulance first into a local hospital and afterwards into a Duisburger special hospital to be brought.

Submitted on 10/13/2008

Submitted by: Julchen
Reference: http://www.presseportal.de/polizeipresse/pm/65858/1281098/kreispolizeibehoerde_wesel

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Honorable Mention
I just rejected a previous submission of this story since it didn't provide a link to an article like this one. After the last submission and reading the translation of this article I think this guy qualifies for an HM. Thanks, Julchen!

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Honorable Mention
I agree with Bruce. The previous sub made it sound like he used the air mattress before trying to deflate it. Now we know he had just finished filling it and was waiting for it to dry. Plus, no one else was hurt. The two searches I ran turned up sites that made it perfectly clear that A) that stuff is volatile and flammable, esp. when just released from the can, _as it says on the can_ (that's why you're supposed to wait the full time before driving on it!) and B) Once a tire's been repaired with the stuff, only a professional mechanic under controlled conditions should remove the tire! Thanks, Julchen, for your submission and taking the time to provide the additional details!

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