Explosion from aerosol can thrown onto fire seriously injures two women

The blast that resulted when a man threw an aerosol can onto a bonfire seriously injured two women nearby and has been described as being “entirely devastating” to them.

Benjamin Francis Crutchett had been at a social gathering at a home in Isabella Plains late in the night of 6 August 2022 when the flames in the brake drum potbelly fire everyone was sitting around started to die down, court documents say.

He decided to try and reignite it, but after failing to, he went and found a can of aerosol accelerant in the home’s garage.

At first, he tried to relight the fire by spraying aerosol into a beer can and adding it to the flames, but this didn’t work so he threw the aerosol can onto the fire.

Nothing happened for about a minute. Meanwhile, the two women walked back to where they had been sitting, which was about 1.5 metres away.

Crutchett told them, “Don’t sit there, it hasn’t gone off”. But then the fire exploded.

Flames shot up about one metre above the fire drum as well as outwards, covering both women.

Their clothes were set alight and bystanders tried to put them out before helping them to the shower and calling paramedics.

An argument also started between a man and Crutchett, ending with the latter hiding in the pantry.

Both women were taken to the Canberra Hospital’s intensive care unit before one was intubated and transported as a high-risk patient to Concord Hospital in Sydney. The other also had to be taken to Concord for specialist treatment.

The women suffered superficial or mid-dermal burns to their faces, while one also suffered burns to her chest, hand and forearm.

According to the court documents, Crutchett admitted to police that he put the aerosol can on the fire, but felt the whole party was to blame due to their level of intoxication and how “no one explicitly told him not to do it”.

“What has occurred here has been entirely devastating for the victims, you know that,” Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson told the visibly-emotional Crutchett on Wednesday (14 June).

“It is of course to your credit that since this date you have done what you can to rehabilitate yourself.

“But, as I’ve said, this has been entirely devastating for the victims and we can never forget that.”

Crutchett appeared in the ACT Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to two counts of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.

His barrister, James Sabharwal, argued the incident was unplanned, perhaps alcohol-fuelled and said his 35-year-old client had at least given some warning that things might “blow up”.

The barrister said his client had been “somewhat fragile” as he’d suffered a workplace assault and was using alcohol to dull the pain.

According to a letter he’d written for the court, he thinks about what he has done all the time.

Prosecutor Sam Bargwanna said he acknowledged the pain and trauma the victims had suffered, adding they had both undergone extensive medical treatment.

Mr Sabharwal asked for a suspended sentence with community service and Mr Bargwanna accepted this would achieve the purposes of sentencing, partly due to the remorse Crutchett had shown as well as the community work he had been doing.

Justice Loukas-Karlsson will hand down her sentence on 21 July.