Direct from the LA Times:

"In retrospect, lighting the match was my big mistake. But I was only
trying to retrieve the gerbil," Eric Tomaszewski told bemused doctors
in the Severe Burns Unit of Salt Lake City Hospital. Tomaszewski, and
his homosexual partner Andrew "Kiki" Farnum, had been admitted for
emergency treatment after a felching session had gone seriously wrong.

"I pushed a cardboard tube up his rectum and slipped Raggot, our
gerbil, in," he explained. "As usual, Kiki shouted out 'Armageddon',
my cue that he'd had enough. I tried to retrieve Raggot but he
wouldn't come out again,so I peered into the tube and struck a match,
thinking the light might attract him."

At a hushed press conference, a hospital spokesman described what
happened next. "The match ignited a pocket of intestinal gas and a
flame shot out the tubing, igniting Mr Tomaszewski's hair and severely
burning his face. It also set fire to the gerbil's fur and whiskers
which in turn ignited a larger pocket of gas further up the intestine,
propelling the rodent out like a cannonball."

Tomaszewski suffered second degree burns and a broken nose from the
impact of the gerbil, while Farnum suffered first and second degree
burns to his anus and lower intestinal tract.