Have you ever sat in someone’s car and thought, Man, for Christmas I should get this person an air freshener. Or four…
You’re probably not the only one. One driver in West Yorkshire, England, had similar thoughts, and ended up blowing his entire car apart. After going a little too heavy with the air freshener, he thought a smoke would be nice.
Boy, was he wrong.
On Saturday afternoon, the driver of a small black car – who has shockingly chosen not to be identified (we can’t imagine why not) – reportedly sprayed an “excessive” amount of air freshener into his vehicle.
He then hopped in, windows closed, and lit a cigarette. If this were a hanging air freshener or even a ventilation freshener, he probably would have been fine. But this driver chose to use an aerosol can to get that fresh, bright scent.
That was his downfall.
When he lit his cigarette, he caught the fumes from the can on fire, causing an explosion within the vehicle.
The explosion was so intense it caused the windows of the car to blow out, including the windshield. There was even minor damage to the surrounding businesses that caught some of the debris from the car.
Believe it or not, the driver of the exploding vehicle suffered only minor injuries, despite the fact that he was inside the car when an explosion intense enough to blow out the windshield took place.
And he isn’t the first man this has happened to, either. In 2017, a car exploded in an Essex car park when a driver got a little too intense with his aerosol air freshener, and then lit a cigarette.
That car, a Ford Focus, looked arguably worse, with the top of the car peeled off like a can and all four windows, along with the back and front panes of glass, completely gone.
The driver of that Ford also sustained only minor injuries, despite being inside of the car!
The police and fire department have both issued public statements warning people of the dangers of aerosol air fresheners, and suggest only using them in well-ventilated areas away from anything flammable.
