Battery jump-start goes wrong

These motorists proved they aren't the brightest sparks - by destroying their cars after crossing jump-start wires.

The motoring mishap resulted in damage that meant both cars were write-offs.

The incident in Columbia, South Carolina, saw silver Jeep owner Andrew Jernigan connect jump-leads to 21-year-old friend Delaney Mills' red Volkswagen.

Their pal Marc Coty saw the whole thing.

Coty explained: "Delaney's Volkswagen stalled on the street, so Andrew pulled his Jeep up to her car to jumpstart it.

"While attaching the jump cables to the batteries of the cars, they accidentally crossed the wires, attaching the positive cable to the negative terminal on the battery and vice versa.

"After Andrew started his car up, the rubber melted off of the jump cables, making it impossible to remove them from the batteries of the cars. The battery of Andrew's jeep began to smoke.

"While calling 911 to report the case to the fire department, the battery caught flame. The fire began to spread very quickly across the entire engine of Andrew's car.

"One of our friends, Dylan Dickerson, tried to beat the fire out with a placemat with no success. We were afraid to throw water on the car, as we thought this would not be the best idea with an electrical fire.

"Within the 15 minutes that it took the firefighters to get to the scene, the flames had engulfed about three-quarters of Andrew's entire car and the flames reached probably 10 feet in height," he concluded.