Seems more like the miraculous grace of incompetence and no maintenance. You ever have a problem at work and you procrastinate long enough and it just sort of goes away for “reasons”? This kind of reminds me of that. Not maintaining the valve was saved by taking even worse care of the tank.

Not only that, but "there's a gas leak, let's strike it with a wrench" is one of the more interesting attempts I've heard of to win a Darwin award.