Teenage boy seriously injured after imitating movie (yet another 'Jackass' stunt gone wrong)

Minneapolis Star-Tribune ^ | 4.18.03

[mhking]

ST. PAUL - A Hastings boy is recovering from third-degree burns on 65 percent of his body after setting himself on fire to imitate stunts from "Jackass: The Movie."

"He is going to live," his mother told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "He was on life support for about six days. He will be in the hospital a minimum of two months. He has already had three major surgeries, and I don't know how many more he'll have."

[mhking]

Not funny, but pingworthy, nonetheless....

"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....

If you want on or off this list, please let me know!

[conservativeinbflo.]

what a DUMB@SS!! i'm sorry... should i feel sorry? because i don't. my sympathy goes to the burn victims who were in an accident. not some MTV-watching, nintendo-playing drone!

[Happygal]

Jackass is just one of those tv programmes that I simply don't understand. I watch it (it's screened on Ireland's RTE channel), but I invariably shake my head incredulously at the antics of Johnny Knoxville and 'Partyboy' Chris Pontius.

[demosthenes the elder]

please, lie to me if you have to, but tell me that this little zippo burned his testicles off.

[AppyPappy]

Yet another mere coincidence

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Chief Deputy Dave Bellows said the parents shouldn't be blamed.

My bet is that the human barbecue and his parents have protected minority status.

[SunStar]

Should I feel bad for thinking this poor schmuck deserves what he gets?

[Bohemund]

"Jackass: The Movie" has no such stunt in it.

The TV show did have an episode, first aired years ago, in which Johnny Knoxville donned a flame-retardant suit covered in raw meat and lay on a grill.

This kid is just a moron.

[American Soldier]

Bah...before we had so many freaking traffic cops in this country, the kid would have been out drag-racing. A certain number of kids pretty much always engage in risky behavior. They can't drop out and join the Marines at 15 anymore, so they find stupid (as opposed to noble) ways to get adventure.

I blame the feminization fo the Boy Scouts, which used to be a worthwhile organization. The kid should have been put in the Marine Corps cadets early on, and maybe this would have been avoided. We are hunters by nature and life in suburbia makes young males edgy ... exposure to healthy adventure activities will help get some of this out of their systems.

[Joe 6-pack]

Should've been a, "hold muh min'ral spirits," alert.

[Darksheare]

With all the stupid and crazy stuff my brother and I did as children (Detonating the back yard for one.) we NEVER did anything THAT stupid.
We just joined Field Artillery when we enlisted...

[Victoria Delsoul]

If there wasn't so much naivete, and frankly, stupidity out there, people wouldn't have voted twice for Bill Clinton. I guess it's just in the genes. Sorry to hear about this poor kid.

[fourdeuce82d]

With all the stupid and crazy stuff I did as a child (Making fuel-air explosives from oxy-acetylene rigs.) I NEVER did anything THAT stupid.

I just joined a mortar platoon when I enlisted...*grin*

[TomServo]

The newspaper agreed not to identify the mother in order to keep her son's identity private.

He won't be hard to spot.

[Cobra64]

The kid has just been awarded the April 18th Darwin Award.

[Williams]

Yes. You don't even know the details. I assume there was some sort of "protection" from the fire that didn't work. Kids and adults often do stupid things, and i think the really stupid and arrogant A*****s on Free Republic are the ones that enjoy not only laughing at tragedy, but actually angrily go on how the stupid kid "deserved it." easy to say until it happens to your kid or nephew. And anybody who answers and says they would say the same about their own kid or nephew is in my estimation a creep or a liar.

Maybe you're all 45 years old but as I have aged and have an 11 year old, I get the feeling that many people at FR are spoiled "kids" who have no idea what real suffering means to real people. Go check how long I've been on FR if that rings your bells.

[Moose4]

OK, so in the past two days, we have:

- Kid who gets blinded looking down the barrel of a potato gun which fires a live frog into his face;

- Kid who sets himself on fire after seeing "Jackass"

Sounds to me like we've got developing cases of SARS: Sudden Acute Repeated Stupidity.

}:-)4

[IYAS9YAS]

In my family, if you get hurt, they laugh first at the stupidity that caused the hurt and then ask if you're ok. My wife has gotten used to this. To quote my Dad, "The wage of stupidity is pain."

I feel no sympathy for these idiots who do this or for the parents whose children (read unsupervised misreants) do this. When I was in my teens, I had responsibilities after school that kept me busy until my parents came home. The problem is, these kids' parents don't know where they are half the time and don't care...unless, of course, something happens to their precious and they can sue.