In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only
trying to retrieve the gerbil, Vito Bustone told bemused doctors in the
Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital.

Bustone, and his homosexual partner Kiki Rodriguez, had been admitted
for treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Faggot, our
gerbil, in, he explained. As usual, Kiki shouted out Armageddon, my
cue that hed had enough. I tried to retrieve Faggot 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 up the tube, igniting Mr Bustones moustache and 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.

Bustone suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the
impact of the gerbil, while Rodriguez suffered first and second degree
burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract. Sheriff Hugo Root later
told reporters: Its Faggot I feel sorry for. Being stuffed up some
queens tradesmans entrance …

(Bloomberg News Service 11/8/93. Spotter — Dr Stewart A. Cowley)