Beware the cooking spray!

dpkimmel2001

dpkimmel2001

Team Owner
Joined
Apr 1, 2009
Messages
36,050
Points
1,033
Location
Western PA
My mother-in-law is one lucky lady. She'll be okay. Others may not be so lucky in her situation.

Yesterday, late afternoon/evening my mother-in-law was cooking some meals for the guys that are going away to deer camp for buck season. At some point she reached above the stove into the cabinet for what, I don't know. In the process she happened to bump the cooking spray which fell out down onto the stove. Whatever it hit, the pan or simply the stove top, it caused a puncture in the can. It immediately caught fire spraying all over her arms/face/kitchen. Her instinct was to run away. Fortunately, my father-in-law was there and able to come to her aide. All of the cabinets around the stove had cooking spray sprayed on them and were on fire. He was able to extinguish those with a fire extinguisher that he had close by.

He took her to the hospital as she had burns mainly to her entire left arm/hand and to a lessor extent her left side of her face. I don't know the full extent of her injuries but she is at home so it seems to me she's very lucky to have escaped a more serious injury.

I'm only telling you this because it seems like a situation that could be avoided by keeping those types of things that are flammable and under pressure in a location where that couldn't occur. We store our cooking spray above the stove too never giving it a thought that something like that could happen. Not anymore.
 
We don't store much above the stove.Mainly because the ones that cook here are to short to reach up there.
 
only things in the cabinets above the store are the 'good'' dishes. The one used for holiday meals.
yeah the cook here is too short too to reach them but she's cute.
 
She's lucky. Happy to hear she'll be OK.
I never store oils/sprays close to the stove. Besides, this cook is too short to reach the cabinet over the stove.
 
seems we have an abundance of ''short order'' cooks! :)

her: I'm 5'2''
me: You're 5' 1.5''
her: That's 5' 9/16'' buster
me LMAO
 
Glad your mother-in-law is okay, dp. Like you said, that could have been a heck of a lot worse. I appreciate the warning. That's one of those little things that people probably rarely think about, if at all.

I just checked our cabinet above the stove, and the only thing we have in there is the coffee maker, which never gets used. The cooking spray and oil are kept in a different cabinet further away from the stove.

My mom is way too short to even attempt to reach the cabinet above the stove anyway. She'd be more likely to fall off of the chair trying to get up there. She scares me with that crap all the time. I never let her do it on my watch. :lol2:
 
I saw something on the local news showing a lady recovering from second and third degree burns over her face and upper body from a can of cooking spray that exploded after it was accidentally left on the top of the stove while the oven was on.
Scary stuff.
 
I'm sure glad your mother-in-law is ok...that could have been really bad. Another thing that I hate seeing is when people fill their gas tanks while talking on their cel phones or sliding in and out of their car especially on cloth seats that produce static electricity. A couple of years ago we hurt an engine at a race and we put it on an engine stand tore it apart and put it in the trailer until the next day. I rolled the engine block out the next morning and was spraying it down with some brake clean when all of a sudden a small spark of static electricity from my finger ignited a pool of brake clean that had puddled in one of the bolt holes and it flashed up and singed my beard and eyebrows. If I had been filling a gas tank who knows what would of happened.
 
Last edited:
dpkimmel2001 said:
My mother-in-law is one lucky lady. She'll be okay. Others may not be so lucky in her situation.

Yesterday, late afternoon/evening my mother-in-law was cooking some meals for the guys that are going away to deer camp for buck season. At some point she reached above the stove into the cabinet for what, I don't know. In the process she happened to bump the cooking spray which fell out down onto the stove. Whatever it hit, the pan or simply the stove top, it caused a puncture in the can. It immediately caught fire spraying all over her arms/face/kitchen. Her instinct was to run away. Fortunately, my father-in-law was there and able to come to her aide. All of the cabinets around the stove had cooking spray sprayed on them and were on fire. He was able to extinguish those with a fire extinguisher that he had close by.

He took her to the hospital as she had burns mainly to her entire left arm/hand and to a lessor extent her left side of her face. I don't know the full extent of her injuries but she is at home so it seems to me she's very lucky to have escaped a more serious injury.

I'm only telling you this because it seems like a situation that could be avoided by keeping those types of things that are flammable and under pressure in a location where that couldn't occur. We store our cooking spray above the stove too never giving it a thought that something like that could happen. Not anymore.
Click to expand...

How is she doing dp?
 
sdj said:
How is she doing dp?
Click to expand...
My wife took her down to West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh today to see doctors there about her injuries. As the time has gone on since Thursday afternoon, the injuries look much worse. I think that's kind of the norm with burns. She suffered burns to her entire left arm from about where a short sleeve would end to the tips of her fingers. She also suffered burns to mainly the left side of her face. She was wearing glasses and that helped shield her eyes. I think we'll find out a lot more after today's visit.

Yesterday, I got a look at their kitchen. When the can fell and sprayed, she had a couple of her cabinets opened. The spray went into the cabinets catching them on fire from both the inside and outside. I think it's mainly the finish on the cabinets that is burned. The ceiling shows the soot from the fire the entire length of the kitchen.

Extremely lucky IMO. It could have been so much worse.
 
Thanks for the warnings! Got me to check our kitchen cabinets. Didn't find anything flammable there, but did find the fire extinguisher hidden up there (so now that's moved to a better spot).

Turns out the only cooking spray we have is what I have stored in the garage. We don't use it for cooking - we spray it on the race car before mud laps to make it easier to clean the car off afterwards.
Still, I'll try to be careful about it around open flames (like when we're prepping tires). Did learn a similar hard lesson to not prep tires inside the trailer...
 
Quick update. Both her face and arm/hand are healing up nicely. They said that she is doing a great job at keeping it scrubbed/clean. A process that is extremely painful.

Not for the faint of heart but I've attached some pics.....

Some of those pics are from the day after so a lot has changed since then.
 

Attachments

  • 15220242_1262715850469641_115952073704023956_n.jpg
    15220242_1262715850469641_115952073704023956_n.jpg
    20.3 KB · Views: 151
  • 15267883_1262715737136319_6283724512488637783_n.jpg
    15267883_1262715737136319_6283724512488637783_n.jpg
    19.9 KB · Views: 140
  • 15326337_1262715827136310_6583585553068432625_n.jpg
    15326337_1262715827136310_6583585553068432625_n.jpg
    25.5 KB · Views: 125
  • 15349663_1262715750469651_5281750148807914539_n.jpg
    15349663_1262715750469651_5281750148807914539_n.jpg
    28.5 KB · Views: 144
  • 15350634_1262715800469646_406957336986635513_n.jpg
    15350634_1262715800469646_406957336986635513_n.jpg
    23.1 KB · Views: 150
  • 15380755_1262715720469654_1936197673975743939_n.jpg
    15380755_1262715720469654_1936197673975743939_n.jpg
    24.5 KB · Views: 137
I just saw this. Damn. She is one lucky woman.
 
My goodness. You certainly did not exaggerate. :eek:
So glad to see that she is on the mend.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom