Woman Torches Car Trying To Remove Petrol With Hoover

Story ByMichael Leidig,Sub EditorJoseph GolderAgencyCentral European News

A woman driver set fire to her car after she accidentally filled it with petrol instead of diesel – and then tried to suck out the incorrect fuel using a vacuum cleaner.

The incident happened in the town of Eschborn in the Main-Taunus district in the German province of Hesse.

The 55-year-old woman driver, who was not named, only realised her mistake after she had finished putting the petrol into her Volkswagen car.

Pictures Credit: CEN

After taking advice, she was told she needed to remove the petrol, and replace it with diesel, and no harm would be done. But that would need to be done by a mechanic, and she was also told not to start the engine so that the petrol remained in the tank.

In order to spare the cost of the mechanic however, and to save time, together with a 20-year-old male helper who was a passerby, she reportedly pushed the car away from the petrol tanks towards the garages vacuum cleaners normally used for cleaning the inside of vehicles.

She had hoped to connect the vacuum cleaner to a hose, and then put the hose in the petrol tank, but the vacuum cleaner was too powerful and sucked petrol into the machinery too quickly before she could disconnect the hosepipe.

As a result, the vacuum cleaner burst into flames as it filled with petrol, and then the flames spread through the hosepipe into the petrol tank setting fire to the car as well. The blaze that followed was so intense, it also damaged a metal container that had been left nearby.

Firemen were quickly on the scene to extinguish the blaze, but not before 30,000 EUR (27,800 GBP) of damage had been caused. The 20-year-old helper also needed to be treated for burns to his hands after failing to extinguish the blaze.

While the firefighters were extinguishing the blaze, there was also traffic chaos on the nearby street which needed to be closed.

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NZ Herald