The Story of the Stupid Samaritan

So I ducked out early from work yesterday to take care of some things related to my pharmacy externship that I was starting. On my way home from my errands traffic suddenly slowed in the lane that I was in while the left lane continued at cruising speeds. The last of the cars in front of me switched to the left lane I beheld a stalled car several yards in front of me. The lights were off and the engine was not running. Since I had a couple hours before I had to be at the pharmacy and since it was raining I decided to be a good citizen and help this guy with his problem. I switched on my emergency blinkers and hopped out of my car. The guy was just getting out of his car and asked if I had any jumper cables, I suggested we first push his car to the side of the road.

Some redheaded girl in a white SUV also stopped to help this guy and together we pushed the car to the side of the road. I ran back to my car and parked behind his car. I didn't have any cables but luckily the redhead (I didn't get either of their names) had some brand new ones. So she turned her SUV around to face the dead car so we could get the cables to reach.

Now, let me explain that I haven't had a whole lot of experience with jumper cables. I thought I knew the jist of it but at this point I was more than willing to let someone else take the lead because chances are they would have a better idea of the procedure than I.

Well the girl handed me the cables, so I went to the dead car's battery and checked it out. I was fairly confident that the cables attached onto the battery and you had to know which cable was attached to which polarity (positive or negative). I looked for the plus or minus sign but couldn't see them. I asked the guy if he knew which was which. He took the cables and hooked them up. I thought, good this guy must know what he's doing.

So I go to the SUV's battery. I hesitate because I'm not sure which cable is attached to which polarity at the dead battery's end. The guy then instructed me where to put each clamp. So we fire up the SUV and the guy tries to get his car started.

Nothing.

Since I'm so naive I think the problem must be unrelated to the battery. I also notice that there is smoke coming off of the clamps on each battery. Anyone who knows about this stuff would recognize this gigantic red flag. Me, on the other hand, having limited experience with jumper cables just assumed this was the norm. Regardless, we realize the jumper cables failed so I go to remove them. Part of my hand touched the metal part of the clamp I got a nice dose of searing hot pain. That's when we noticed that the rubber sheilding of the cables were melting away from the inner wiring... for the entire length of the cable. Part of the cable was touching my shirt and the rubber was fused onto my shirt, that is, the rubber liquified from the heat and then solidified on my shirt. Yeah, it was that hot.

So what happened was (I did some internet research when I got home) that the cables were not hooked up correctly and there was WAY TOO MUCH current going through the wires. Not only was it generating a massive amount of heat in the cable, it was also heating up the battery as well and we were all lucky the battery didn't explode showering us in magma battery acid.

Anyway, I told the girl to not use those cables again (apparently none of us had a lot of experience with this and we figured the (brand new) cables were faulty). So I just bailed. I offered to call someone for the guy but he had a phone. The girl offered to drive him somewhere but he declined. I figured I'd done all I could and just got the eff out of there.

So, without further ado, proper jumper cable procedures:

Start with both engines off.
Step 1: Attach red cable to the Positive end of the working battery (Positive is the bigger of the two)
Step 2: Attach black cable to the Negative end of the working battery.
Step 3: Attach the other red cable to the Positive end of the dead battery.
Step 4: Attach the other black cable to a metal part of the dead engine. Some will say to attach it to the Negative end of the battery, which will work, but it is not the preferred way. You just need to ground this cable.
Step 5: Start up the working engine.
Step 6: Attempt to start the dead engine.

Thanks for playing.