It’s summer time, which means the weather is hot, the beer is cold, and the grille is a burnin’. Imagine an amazing weekend with the wife at the beach or park, cooking up your favorite grill food, and enjoying the nice August weather. Sounds amazing doesn’t it – maybe hide away the phone and laptop of a day, just enjoy each other’s company and the scenery around you. Eventually, all good things come to an end, though, so at some point, you have to pack up your car and head back to reality. There isn’t much worse than dreading going to work on Monday after having such a wonderful Sunday, but things can always be worse as one Florida couple found out when their trip home from such a day turned explosive.

Apparently, the couple packed all their belongings, including their grill, into their Kia Sorrento and embarked on their trip home. Well, as any smoker will tell you, it almost comes naturally to light up once you get in the car – assuming you smoke in your car, anyway. Well, this particular day, hubby had a brain fart and forgot to turn off the propane to the grill. As the couple started to pull away from wherever they were at, whoever was sitting in the passenger seat decided to say hello to Mr. Marlboro. Well, since someone neglected to turn off the propane, that quick hello to Mr. Marlboro got this couple close enough to God to shine his shoes. The spark from the lighter that was intended to light up that cowboy killer also ignited all of the gas that had expelled into the vehicle since the grill was loaded up. How the couple didn’t smell the propane is beyond any logic we can come up with.

Keep reading to hear a little more about the situation.

KAAAAAABOOOOOM

Just take a look at this car. It’s quite amazing that the couple even survived, let alone walked away with non-life-threatening injuries that were limited to burns (and probably a bit of deafness, I’m sure. Clearly, the propane tank blew with a vengeance, nearly ripping the roof right off, while stretching it to the point that the car is nearly double its original height at the peak.

The doors on the driver’s side were blown open and mangled while reports say that the passenger side of the Sorrento was blown clean off. As you can see, the pressure from the explosion took out all glass and even sent the windshield flying from the car. The driver, naturally, lost control and smashed into a light pole that conveniently had a no parking sign attached to it. It’s safe to assume that they weren’t ticketed for parking there, but surely have to be thanking their lucky stars that they are alive. How did they not get peppered with shrapnel or just ripped apart by the explosion itself? The explosion was powerful enough to rip off the entire right side of the car, so the fact these two walked away is nothing short of a miracle. They say smoking is bad for your health and can kill you, but this is a little ridiculous.

On a side note, I need to tip my hat to Kia on this one. Not only did both passengers survive with relatively minor injuries, but even after such a destructive blast, the air bags still deployed when the Sorrento struck the pole. Alright, Hyundai, what kind of armor do you put into your seats and what kind of indestructible connectors do you use for your electrical connections?

References

2017 Kia Sorento Driven

Read our full driven review on the 2017 Kia Sorento.

2018 Kia Sorento

Read our speculative review on the 2018 Kia Sorento.