Tattoo artist set ablaze by ‘gassy leak’ from client while touching up a butt tattoo

‘You don’t just let rip in someone’s face like that’: Tattoo artist who had his beard set on fire when a fart from his client caught his cigarette.

Tattoo artist set ablaze by ‘gassy leak’ from client while touching up a butt tattoo
© Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash
Tattoo artist set ablaze by ‘gassy leak’ from client while touching up a butt tattoo

Any professional tattoo artist would tell you touching up an existing work isn’t that complicated. But for this artist-client pair, the process was anything but smooth after they landed in an emergency room due to a gassy slip.

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Gassy Leak

Plus-size British model, Tracey Munter paid a visit to Good Tattoo Emporium in Rotherham, England, in 2016 to have the finishing touches applied to tattoo she had on her buttocks. It was the chariot race scene from the 1959 film, Ben Hur.

The tattoo artist she had gone to see, Jason Burns, described it as:

...a big job in more ways than one. It’s delicate, close-up work.

Halfway through the session, Tracy let out a still but power-packed fart which met the cigarette Jason had sticking out of his mouth. The ‘gas leak’ from Tracy’s chambers caused the cigarette to catch fire, setting Jason’s beard ablaze. He recalled the incident with a touch of English humour.

Next thing is, I sense a slight ripple in the buttock cleavage area just around Charlton Heston’s whip, and a hissing sound – more of a whoosh than a rasp – and before I know what’s happening, there’s a flame shooting from her arse to my fag (cigarette) and my beard’s gone up like an Aussie bush fire.

While he rushed to the sink to douse the flames on his burning face, 23-year-old Tracey was also frantically trying to put out the fire on her thong with a damp towel.

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A snapshot of the famous chariot scene from ‘Ben Hur’ on Tracey's butt. Aleteia

Blame Game

The pair had to be rushed to the Rotherham District Hospital, where they were treated for minor burns and shock. Some five years later, they both blamed each other for the incident. Jason said:

I’m furious. I’ve got a face like a mange-ridden dog and my left eyebrow’s not there anymore. I don’t know about Ben Hur; Gone With The Wind‘s more like it. You don’t just let rip in someone’s face like that. It’s dangerous.

Tracey was not only unhappy about the physical agony she endured after sustaining those injuries, she was also not enthused about the final work on her butt.

She said Charlton Heston in the image looks more like Sidney Poitier now.

Jason shouldn’t have had a fag on the go and there’s no way I’d guff on purpose. He’d had me on all fours for nearly an hour. I can only put up with that for so long before nature takes its course. My Kev knows that I give him my five-second warning and I’d have done the same for Jason, but I didn’t get chance — it just crept out.
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