Gerbil Mishap in Hospital

In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only trying to retrieve the gerbil, Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital.

Tomaszewski, and his homosexual partner Andrew Kiki Farnum, had been admitted for emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in, he explained.

As usual, Kiki shouted out Armageddon, my cue that hed had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldnt come out again, so I peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract him.

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened next. The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewskis hair and severely burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbils fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out like a cannonball.

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.