pulled up. He spoke broken English but had one word of advice: “Cables.” Neither driver had jump leads, but the Redditor did. “I had no idea how to jump a car at the time (I have since learnt),” he admitted. But instead of looking up the right method, he went for it.

The rain poured. The parking lot was dark. The BMW’s engine bay looked completely different from the Redditor’s tiny Fiat’s. Still, he hooked up the leads. “I see the battery but can’t see the terminals,” he recalled. Then, the BMW driver pointed. “Plus,” he said.

So, he connected the cables. Negative first. Then positive.

“SPARKS EVERYWHERE, genuinely blinding sparks,” he wrote. “It felt like I’d been flashbanged.” All three men jumped back.

Realizing his mistake, he ripped the cables off. The BMW driver took over and connected them properly. The Toyota roared to life. Success! Or so he thought.

The Toyota driver took off, grateful. But across the lot, the BMW sat lifeless. “My heart sunk,” the Redditor admitted. Did he just fry the guy’s ECU? Was this about to get really expensive?

He rushed back to help, this time using his little Fiat to jump-start the BMW. Miraculously, it worked. The BMW driver refused compensation and went on his way.

Let’s be real—you want to be the helpful person in a situation like this. But sometimes, good intentions aren’t enough.

This driver walked away with a valuable lesson (and somehow without an angry BMW owner chasing him down). Next time, he’ll know how to use jumper cables properly. And when the next problem arises that he doesn’t know how to solve, maybe he’ll take five seconds to Google the proper procedure first.