Battery goes BOOM!

[COPPERHEAD85]

Its winter and a lot of people are using jumper cables,please be careful and watch what your doing.
Always find a place on the engine block or use the specified grounding location when your jumping another car or truck.
This little screw up happened when he decided to strike the cables together right over the top of the car he was going to jump to see if he had a good connection.
He is in Vanderbilt in Nashville...........Lets just say he will not ever need glasses....

 

[EMB1230]

It's amazing how many people out there lack common sense, another example is the morons that like to smoke right next to the propane tanks at the grocery stores.

 

[gwaii]

same thing applies when welding around them....good thing i.....uh,i mean....the guy had a full face welding helmet on.otherwise,it could have been real bad.

 

['99 EB Explorer]

When I was in auto shop class in high school, we weren't allowed in the shop until we went through 2 weeks of safety classes with a major test at the end....most of it was about batteries.

I still firmly believe that people should be required to go through a basic automotive course before they get their drivers licence. Period! Too many idiots out there.

There could've been a baby in the car or another person standing around when that happened. Like...WTF!

 

[n_grimm]

That's too bad. Years ago I was across the street when that happened to a friend of mine. It sounded like a shotgun blast but at least he was wearing glasses so it turned out ok. To this day after connecting the positive, I hook the ground to the engine instead of the battery post.

 

[Twister]

So how did it blow up? I have never seen that.

 

[BRUTUS_T_HOG]

So how did it blow up? I have never seen that.

batteries generate explosive hydrogen gas.. it only takes a small spark from the moment your connect your battery cable or jumper cable.

touching cables together is even worse.

i've had a battery explode on me and my brother.. we were both wearing newish clothes and within a couple hours those clothes were wrags full of holes since you get blasted with acid

 

[Hahnsb2]

When I was in auto shop class in high school, we weren't allowed in the shop until we went through 2 weeks of safety classes with a major test at the end....most of it was about batteries.

I still firmly believe that people should be required to go through a basic automotive course before they get their drivers licence. Period! Too many idiots out there.

There could've been a baby in the car or another person standing around when that happened. Like...WTF!

Our diesel class had a specific brick room for storing and charging batteries. In prior years there had been some batteries that exploded.

 

[adsm08]

I've seen that happen before.

We had one explode when the guy tried to start the engine once at my last shop. They brought it in saying the battery was dead, it fired up fine in the lot, and so Matt brought it in and shut it off. He tried to start it up again just for S&G, and the battery went BANG!

 

[Hahnsb2]

I suppose this is a good argument for Optima batteries, since they're completely sealed?

 

[ranger_mclaren]

Wow, I've never heard of a battery exploding I don't know whats worse the fact that it can happen, or the fact there are enough morans out there and it happens so much everyone else knows about it. I've been around cars since I was 5 my dad tought me everything on his '68 Fury, I plan to do the same with my kids, knowone goes car illiterate in my family.

 

[LearjetMinako]

I guess there was a reason why one should connect the ground to the engine block. In my past attempts to jump start vehicles, the pos(+) to battery and gnd(-) to block, the engine would not even turn over. So I always connected directly to the battery. I guess I have been lucky so far, and don't have to worry about it much now since I'm no longer a mechanic. But if I have to jump start somebody this winter, I'll remember this for now on.

And yes, I knew batteries produce hydrogen and could explode. Thats I charged them in a large, well vented space.

 

[snoopdoggie]

Had this happened to me, once, over thirty years ago. Had been charging the battery and went to remove the clamps. The arc set off the gasses coming from the battery. End result looked a lot like the pic here. Have not hooked up directly to a battery since. I was lucky and had glasses on. The vehicle was in the Wash Bay of the garage at the time so I was only about three steps from a water hose.

 

[shane96ranger]

My buddy had one that was (unknowingly) extremely low on water. We took it over to Autozone to have them hook it to their tester. And man did they take forever to come out to the car. After a good 20-30 minutes, they brought it out and my friend popped the hood. The guy from AZ was fiddling around trying to find the hood latch and all the sudden I'm deaf from the loudest freakin' boom ever. I thought a bomb went off (I guess it really did). I don't know exactly what set it off, but I can only guess the hood latch made a spark. I also think that with it being extra low on water, it made more room for hydrogen in the battery. But holy crap was that loud. We all had to check our shorts after that. We were all so lucky the hood was not open yet.

It's a VERY scary experience. Thanks for posting the reminder.

EDIT: One more thing. We had just jumped it improperly to get it over to AZ. So, we had several attempts at a bad injury but failed. Someone was watching over us that particular day.

 

[Ranger Dave (B25)]

Its winter and a lot of people are using jumper cables,please be careful and watch what your doing.
Always find a place on the engine block or use the specified grounding location when your jumping another car or truck.
This little screw up happened when he decided to strike the cables together right over the top of the car he was going to jump to see if he had a good connection.
He is in Vanderbilt in Nashville...........Lets just say he will not ever need glasses....

Damn. Do we know him from the neighborhood?