Fire in the Pants

Hoboken, New Jersey, March 25, 2004:

A passenger on a New Jersey Transit train suffered slight burns to his right leg yesterday when his pants were set on fire by a red-hot hair clip stuck into the heater under his seat, officials said. Heaters on the trains are underneath the bench-type seats, behind a grate.

The incident, which transit veterans said might be unprecedented, unfolded about 12:30 p.m. aboard a Hoboken-bound train, when the man noticed his pants ablaze.

The man was later identified as Ronatarian Party founder and presidential candidate Ron.

Transit personnel were alerted, and Ron was taken from the train at the Grove Street stop. It was unclear how the fire went out.

An emergency medical team took him to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for superficial burns to his right leg and released, a hospital administrator said. The train was taken out of service and investigated.

This is Ron's second run-in with a New Jersey Transit train in less than a week. On Friday, he was hit by a train while walking home from a local adult establishment (See Double Whammy).

Ron was spotted yesterday afternoon leaving the hospital accompanied by his vice presidential running mate Brad. The victim walked without any noticeable limp and declined commenting on the incident. Brad remained silent as well and walked a step behind his superior.

Ron was wearing a puffy white parka and a pair of parachute pants that apparently had been intentionally ripped in several spots, leaving jagged, fringe patches.

It was not clear if those were the same pants that had caught on fire. A token booth clerk at the Grove Street station said she had seen Ron walk out of the station shortly after he was burned and said the pants had a row of fringes.

"He was wearing the strangest pants," the clerk said, describing the jeans as similar in appearance to chaps that a cowboy might wear. "What he was wearing, he had to catch on fire," said the clerk, who declined to give her name. "Crazy-ass cracker...I never seen no one wear nothing like that."

Ken Connaughton, a New Jersey Transit spokesman, said investigators found that the fire started with a hair clip that had been stuck into the radiator. It conducted heat and set ablaze part of the man's pants. He declined to speculate on the value of thermal conductivity (k) of the hair clip.

"The clip was glowing red when they found it," said Connaughton. "He wasn't burned because of the heat itself. He was burned by the foreign object stuck into the heater."

Connaughton did not seem surprised that Ron was involved in another bizarre situation under his jurisdiction.

"Let's face it, the guy is a nut," he said. "He and his minions are way outside the norms of society -- and this is what happens."

Connaughton could not say how long the clip had been in the radiator or identify who did it.

"It looks like somebody with too much time on their hands," he said.

Transit employees said they never heard of a similar incident, although D. Parker, a conductor working on the PATH who wouldn't give his full name, said plastic bags occasionally melt slightly if they are kept against the heater.

"Nothing really bursts into flames," Parker said. "I guess except for Ron."

Posted by Bittle at March 25, 2004 02:20 PM

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