A humorous, yet intensely annoying, video from William Shatner and State Farm about THE DANGERS OF FRYING TURKEYS! Which boil (ha!) down to, “Don’t be an idiot!”
Yes, Bill, that’s right. Remarkably, enough you should keep open flame away from the house. Also, you should read the freaking directions (or look at the pot, which is usually marked) to avoid overfilling with oil. And, yes, dropping a turkey into a pot of oil is an idiotic thing to do.
In equally insightful pieces of advice, don’t eat burning matches, don’t fill your turkey fryer with gasoline, and don’t stick your hand in the oil to see if it’s hot yet.
And about 95% (aside from the splattering oil in case of dropping a turkey in) of the problems you describe can be avoided by getting an electric turkey fryer.
On the other hand … mmmmm. Looking forward to frying turkey next week …