Pa. pump death a rare event, experts say

The death of a Pennsylvania man filling his gas tank has raised questions about how much drivers should fear static electricity while refueling.

Many motorists may have already been spooked or confused by rumors and urban legends, by mistaken warnings at gas stations and in widely circulated e-mails about cell-phone risks, and by online videos showing flames erupting near nozzles.

L. David Byers, 19, of Camp Hill, was found early Friday morning lying on the ground as his car and a gas pump burned in Camp Hill. He died from inhaling superheated gases, according to the Cumberland County coroner.

Static electricity apparently caused the fire, but only one other similar human fatality has been documented, in Oklahoma in 1996, said Robert Renkes, executive vice president of the Petroleum Equipment Institute.

A dog died in a Nebraska incident.

Nonfatal fires also seem to be rare, considering that "Americans pump gasoline into their cars between 11 and 12 billion times a year," according to a report by the Oklahoma-based institute, which found 173 cases from 1992 to 2008.

How complete that count is can be questioned, said Renkes, 58, who grew up in Valley Forge and graduated from Conestoga High.

"There is no one that collects this data," he said. "We have some percentage of all the accidents, but I can't tell you how many."

In about four out of five cases, women were doing the dispensing, Renkes said.

That's apparently because women are more likely to make the biggest mistake - get back in the car, leave the door open, move around, then get out and not touch anything before touching near the nozzle, he said.

Simply getting in to put a credit card in a purse can build up static electricity, especially in winter, when the weather is cool and dry.

Forget the stuff about cell phones. That's a myth that has been disproved, including by MythBusters on the Discovery Channel.

"We've looked at 181 billion fuelings without an incident with a cell phone," Renkes said. "We still haven't seen one."

Eighty-five incidents involving vehicle reentry were documented in the report at www.PEI.org.

That's why the National Fire Protection Association changed its codes to require three warnings at gas pumps:

Turn off engine.

Don't smoke.

Never reenter your vehicle while refueling.

Incidents have apparently been declining, with no more than five in any year from 2004 to 2008.

More awareness of warnings has helped, along with pumps in many major urban areas, especially on the East Coast, equipped with vapor-recovery systems, which funnel fumes back to storage tanks.

"It's a hose in a hose," Renkes said, with the inner hose dispensing the gas, the outer hose piping away polluting - and potentially ignitable - vapors.