Firefighters in Vallejo can say they've seen it all now, after what might have been one of the department's most bizarre calls.
It all went down Wednesday, at about 5:30 p.m. in the 500 block of Kentucky Street. An hour later, a man had his hand back.
The man's hand had become stuck, somehow, in a car's gas tank, reported the Vallejo Times-Herald. The odd incident was a first for Fire Capt. Dan Sarna.
"We've seen people stuck in faucets, in drains," Sarna told the Times-Herald, "We cut people out of rings all the time. But this is the first time we've ever had to get someone's finger out of a gas tank."
Even though the man said it was his own car, others suggested it was his ex-girlfriend's, according to the Times-Herald. Sarna speculates that the man was trying to siphon gas from the tank.
"He pushed that little valve in the tank and it closed on this finger and he couldn't get it out," Sarna told the newspaper. "The more he pushed his finger in, the more it cut into his finger."
Nothing would dislodge the man's hand, not vaseline, not screwdrivers or other tools. So, the firefighters had to cut the gas tank from the car -- man and all -- and take it with them to the fire station.
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They used a heavy duty electric saw, ice and elbow grease to free the man's hand.
It makes one wonder how that emergency call might have gone. Maybe something like: "Excuse me Mr. Firefighter, can you pull my finger ... out of this gas tank?"
