14 DAY TRIAL // This past Tuesday, a man living in Long Island, US, accidentally set a rental car ablaze while trying to rid it of bedbugs. Since he was inside the vehicle when it caught fire, the man came pretty darn close to getting killed.
Luckily, he managed to crawl out of the car in time. Even so, he suffered first- and second-degree burns and had to be hospitalized. As for the rental vehicle, it was obliterated by the blaze and accompanying explosions.
How not to get rid of bedbugs
According to the police officers investigating this case, the man, identified as 44-year-old Scott Kemery, only realized that the car had bedbugs crawling everywhere inside it after having already rented it.
Rather than try to return the vehicle, he decided to take care of the problem himself. He bought some industrial alcohol, and while in the parking lot of a local supermarket in Long Island, he doused the car's interior with it.
Apparently, the 44-year-old expected the alcohol would kill the nasty bedbugs plaguing his new ride. The thing is that, unfortunately, he never got to confirm this rather peculiar theory of his.
Thus, word has it that, after having poured industrial alcohol all over the car's interior, the man got behind the wheel and, to celebrate his wittiness, lit a cigarette. The alcohol vapors inside the vehicle instantly ignited.
Moments later, the rental ride was one great bonfire. As mentioned, the man managed to get out of it in time to avoid being killed by the flames. He did, however, suffer serious burns and needed urgent medical attention.
“He said he had bedbugs in the car, and someone told him if he saturated them with alcohol, it would kill them,” police officer Edward Fitzgerald said in an interview.
“So he went and bought some alcohol, he poured it all in there and he sat in his car and lit a cigarette. Everything is burned up,” he went on to explain, as cited by the New York Post.
The police are yet to confirm the story
44-year-old Scott Kemery insists that he rented the car to drive to the Hamptons. Still, police officers haven't yet ruled out the possibility that the ride was stolen and purposely set ablaze to hide evidence.
Since not much remained of the vehicle in the aftermath of the fire, investigating where exactly the four-wheeler came from and why Scott Kemery was driving it is proving rather tricky, authorities say.
