Gas is flammable.
A Joliet woman apparently forgot that truism. She used a cigarette lighter to peer in and check the level of her portable gas-can, setting her self and her car ablaze in the process.
The 27-year-old woman, who remains unnamed, suffered second-degree burns and a serious case of why-the-heck-did-I-just-do-that after the bizarre incident, according to the Daily Herald.
Police officials said the woman stopped at a 7-Eleven gas station in Joliet Tuesday night to fill up her portable tank. She placed the canister on the passenger seat of her car, pulled the gas pump off the holder and started filling.
About halfway through the refueling, she took out her lighter, lit a flame and peeked into the gas can to see how full it was.
Annnnnd boom.
The can erupted in flames, which quickly spread to the interior of her car.
Apparently frightened back into her senses, the woman then tried pushing the flaming car away from the gas pumps so that the whole 7-Eleven wouldn’t explode.
When the cops arrived, the car was about five feet from the pumps and completely engulfed in flames.
The woman was taken to the hospital and treated for burns and injuries to her wrist and thigh.
