Gender Reveal Goes Horribly Awry

Things didn't go quite as planned in Australia 'burnout'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 10, 2019 9:07 AM CDT

It's natural to wonder about your baby's sex before the birth, and increasingly common to hold gender reveal parties. But as a story from Down Under shows, some of these revelations are getting out of hand, even downright dangerous. The Washington Post reports on a stunt in Australia's Gold Coast that took place in April of last year, the video of which is just seeing widespread circulation now. It shows a couple finding out they're having a boy via a trend known as a "burnout," in which huge puffs of colored smoke are created by spinning the tires of a parked car; the color is created by using either special tires or bags of brightly hued powder. In Australia, this practice has become "the main high-risk behavior associated with the gender-reveal event," per a Guardian article in November.

And that risk came to fruition in this particular case, which started out with blasts of blue smoke, but ended with the car catching fire. A man involved in the incident, which was captured by a drone camera, hopped into the car and started driving at one point after the flames seemed to die down—but then they kicked back up, causing him to flee the car. The driver ended up being convicted of one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle; he was fined $1,000 and wasn't allowed behind the wheel for six months. "I know people like to do unique things for gender reveals these days, but use a bit of common sense," Sgt. Hilton Buckley of the Queensland Police Service tells 7NEWS Brisbane. Meanwhile, a QPS spokeswoman tells the Post: "This is the first one I've seen like this. Usually, people just have a cake." (More Australia stories.)

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