In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only
trying to retrieve the gerbil, Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors in
the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski , and his
homosexual partner Andrew Kiki Farnum, had been admittedfor emergency
treatment after a fetching session had gone seriously wrong. I pushed a
cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our gerbil, in, he
explained. As usual Kiki shouted out Armagedon, my cue that hed had
enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he wouldnt come out again, so I
peered into the tube and struck a match, thinking the light might attract
him.

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what happened
next, The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a flame shot out
the tube, igniting Mr. Tomaszewskis hair severely burning his face,. It
also set fire to the gerbils fur and whiskers which in turn ignited a
larger pocket of gas further up the intestine, propelling the rodent out
like a cannonball. Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken
nose from the impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second
degree burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.