Darwin Awards - 2007

First nomination...

A teenager's new car exploded when he used deodorant spray to polish his dashboard and then lit a cigarette, igniting the aerosol's fumes.

Jayme Edmonds suffered burns and spent three days in Rotorua Hospital and nine more days off school recovering after the blast in his uninsured $3000 vehicle.

The doors blew out and the windows shattered - the windscreen was found metres away down the driveway of his home.

Joanne Edmonds, mother of 16-year-old Jayme, said her family had been traumatised by the incident.

Jayme had gone to his car just before midnight - dressed only in his boxer shorts - to have a cigarette and listen to his stereo. In the car were two bottles of Lynx deodorant. "All my mates use it, we all take it around in cars. Others use Impulse," said the Western Heights High School student.

Both bottles had been left in the car, in the hot sun, all day.

Jayme's Honda Prelude was a recent purchase and he was worried about some paint stains on the inside door. He began spraying from the aerosol can on to the car and rubbing the stains off with a towel, he said.


"Then I lit the smoke and this big ball of fire went up.

"I knew my hands were burned because I picked up this towel to try to save my stereo, only the towel was on fire. It was a blur. I just remember all the heat coming up my body."

The explosion shattered two windows of his father's van parked about 3m away and woke up the neighbourhood. "I've never heard anything so loud in my life," Mrs Edmonds said.

Jayme singed his hair, eyebrows and nostrils, but it was about half an hour before he realised the extent of his injuries.

His mother took him to hospital, where he ended up on an oxygen machine in intensive care.

Unilever Australasia spokesman Nick Goddard said the deodorant was clearly marked "highly flammable".

"Lynx is designed to attract members of the opposite sex, but not in this way. We hope the young man is not too seriously hurt."