A Few Seconds to Live—or Die
A True Story by: C. J. Viosca
BEFORE I BEGIN, let me make it perfectly clear that this accident was my fault. I feel that I am as cautious as one can be and I know this accident can happen to anyone. All of us, no matter how careful, do have moments of carelessness and that's when we get caught. Every modeler I know treats model fuel like a can of water. Fellow modelers, we are carrying a possible bomb and all of us need to be made aware of this.
This particular Tuesday afternoon, I was ready to go to the lake and test run two boats. My wife was fixing an early supper and I told her that I would load the van to be ready to go. That day, I had been breaking in an engine and had my can of fuel along with the 12-volt battery and starter sitting by the garage door. I had made a new box to hold all of my usual junk and had just painted it. Since it was still wet, I figured I would use the old ice box I had been using, just one more time. I picked up the can of fuel in my left hand and the battery in my right hand with the starter still hooked up. I almost put the battery down to disconnect the starter, but figured I would do it after I put them in the ice box. I bent over to set these items down, then all of a sudden there was a funny glow and my vision disappeared followed by a terrible explosion and fire. Well, there I was, blind and on fire. I must tell you that the urge to run was tremendous and had I run, it would have been fatal. I stood up and told myself not to panic and that I was alone, on fire and had better save my own life or die. I immediately stopped breathing when the explosion occurred and knew that if I inhaled the fire, it would kill me. I was standing on my concrete drive and knew that I had to get to the grass in my back yard and groped for the latch on the gate. My second thought was to hit the flimsy gate and force it open if I couldn't find the latch. Yes, all of these thoughts were as they happened. You'd be amazed to know how fast your mind does work. Well, after opening the gate, I dove into the grass and rubbed the fire out on my face. To eliminate any chance of inhaling flame, I held my shirt in front of my face as a filter to breathe through. My next motions were to roll in the grass to the water hydrant about fifteen feet away. I turned the water on and bathed in it and put out the fire. I was lucky here too as I had modified my hydrant to shoot the water out rather than down and this made it much easier to get the fire out.
After all this, my wife saw me and came out. This was when I discovered I could see only silhouettes and told her what happened. I then went into the house and got the fire extinguisher and put the fire out in the driveway and garage. Next I had my wife call the eye doctor as my primary concern was for my eyes rather than the burns as I make my living as a jet pilot and my eyes are a necessity. Next I took a bath and put on some cotton pajamas and had my son, David, drive me to the fire station where I got into an ambulance for the ride to the hospital.
Let me go back and confirm one thing that might sound confusing. That is the part about the flash and sound of the explosion. Yes, I was burned in the eyes before I heard the sound. All of the skin was burned off my eyeballs before I had a chance to close them. My eye doctor told me that I came as close to being blind as possible without actually being blind. About all there is left to tell you is that I was a very lucky fellow. Both my hands, face, right arm, leg and knee received second-degree burns along with my ears. The eyes are doing fine and still check 20-20. I am home now and consider what happened to me can happen to someone else. If it had happened at a different location, at a flying field, etc., I might not have been so lucky. All of what I told you took place in about eight seconds. Any longer would have resulted in more extensive third-degree burns which would have meant a long hospital stay and skin grafting.
Not too long ago, you may have read about the modeler that had a can of fuel explode in the trunk of his car with the result that everything was a complete loss including the car. I also know that firemen in some cities are advocating eliminating the fuel in plastic jugs. Well, all I can say here is that this particular accident would not have happened had the fuel been in plastic. The reason the fuel blew up was the fact that the starter battery clips touched the can and when they did the can got red hot at the two contact points and acted just like a glow plug. The fumes at the top of the can ignited and blew the bottom out of the can splashing the remainder of fuel (about 1/2 gal.) all over me. Now that this is all over, I do not relish the use of electric fuel pumps although they are used thousands of times every day. While the fuel pump didn't cause the accident, I feel it could be a source of danger. If you do use an electric pump, keep the wires in good shape and be careful of batteries around metal cans. I plan to use plastic jugs for fuel and a hand-crank fuel pump from now on. I do not advocate leaving fuel cans or jugs in hot cars or out in very hot direct sun.
One last parting thought is that I do credit my emergency training as a pilot with keeping me calm and really saving my life. Keep calm and you can help yourself through many perilous situations but if you panic, it can mean disaster in many cases. Remember... be careful.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
