A 75-year-old man in the US state of Georgia received burns over 75% of his body when he tried to open a bag of chips with a lighter.
The man was seriously injured on Wednesday afternoon (local time) in the city of Dalton, 126km northeast of Atlanta.
“The victim…was using a lighter to open bags of chips which he was unable to do with his hands. While doing this, the man accidentally set himself on fire while sitting in a recliner,” said the town’s communications director Bruce Frazier in a statement to the New York Post.
Maintenance workers contained the fire to the recliner using a hose until firefighters arrived.
The victim was taken to a hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee with third degree burns on about 75% of his body, Frazier said.
He was then taken to a burns centre, where his current condition remains unknown.
It is unclear if the chips themselves sparked the fire or if the flames came from something else.
SHARE ME