I don't know the unfortunate young man's name, so I'll just call him Bob.

Poor Bob liked blooming onions, similar to the Bloomin' Onion famously served at Outback Steakhouse.

You're probably familiar with blooming onions, at least in theory. They are large sweet onions that are cross cut almost down to the root, dipped into batter and deep fried. Then they are served with a mayonnaise-based sauce.

They are the ultimate version of fried onion rings. They are also 1,920 calories per serving. That's more calories than most women need to eat in an entire day and almost as many as a man needs.

Anyway, Bob liked them. So for a present, his mother gave him a device that cross-cuts onions to make it easier to make them bloom.

This story, you should know, was told to me by my friend Crispin. Crispin is a forensic engineer. Forensic engineers are called when there has been some kind of mechanical disaster, and it's their job to figure out what went wrong.

When forensic engineers tell you a story, it rarely ends up well.

And I should also probably mention at this point that Bob was clad in nothing but underwear and socks. That fact’s not absolutely essential to the rest of the story, but don’t you think it’s a fun detail?

Bob later swore he followed the directions. He put a big pot of oil on the stove and clipped a thermometer to it so he could bring it to the correct temperature of 375 degrees.

He mixed the batter. He placed the onion in ice water to make it open up and form a pattern resembling petals. He dipped the onion into the batter and placed it into the hot oil.

Because it was Crispin telling me the story, I went into Encyclopedia Brown mode and was on the lookout for what went wrong. Did you figure it out?

Poor Bob had neglected to coat the onion with a dry mix after he put it in the ice water, and then he forgot to dip it into batter. He shook off some of the water, but there still was water on the surface. And oil and water go together like oil and water.

A mist of oil shot straight up from the pot and immediately ignited into what Bob, in his deposition, called a two-foot tunnel of flame.

He picked up the pot and shouted to his fiancée to open the door so he could empty it. He also told her to get some Gatorade from the refrigerator to put out the fire.

Look, the poor guy was panicking. He had a two-foot tunnel of flame shooting out from the pot that he was now holding. His first thought was that somehow Gatorade could help.

As he ran toward the door, he spilled some of the oil and then slipped on it in his stocking feet. As he fell he was covered with fiery oil, which also splashed across the floor, setting set some curtains on fire.

The fiancée went to get her brother who lived nearby and who had served in Vietnam — which made him, in their eyes, an expert on what to do in all flaming-pot-of-oil emergencies.

By the time the brother got there, Bob had managed to put out the flames, presumably without the use of Gatorade. A medevac helicopter was called, and he was taken to a hospital. He survived, but was severely burned, especially on the feet.

He had been a bulldozer operator before the incident, but he could no longer do that work because of his damaged feet. His fiancée also left him.

Bob sued the company that made the device to cut the onion and provided the instructions on making a blooming onion. As part of his research, Crispin used one of the devices to cut an onion in his own home and carefully followed all of the directions, including drying the onion before battering it. He didn't have a problem, and his onion came out perfect.

There are several important lessons to be learned from this story:

• Read the directions thoroughly. Follow the directions completely. What seems like a minor detail can make all the difference.

• On the other hand, maybe the company should have emphasized the importance of drying the onion. When Crispin teaches classes, he tells the students to think about what could go wrong if someone uses a machine or structure the way they design it.

• Nineteen hundred and twenty calories? Seriously? Blooming onions taste great, but that's just insane.

• There are no circumstances under which Gatorade should be used to put out a grease fire. Gatorade and other liquids will only make a grease fire worse.

• In case of a grease fire, remove the pan from the heat and, if possible, cover with a lid.

• Those Encyclopedia Brown books were great.

• Forensic engineer has to be the coolest job in the world.

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