Starts but then dies

We have a 97 villager, wifes car, she left the lights on at work and ran the battery down. I went to jump it ,thinking its only the battery. With jumper cables on, it will start but only runs about 5 or 10 seconds then dies. When it starts I try to rev it up a little, but seems to only make it die quicker. If I start it and dont touch accelerator pedal it runs a little longer then dies. It's still in the parking lot and looks like I get to give her a ride to work everyday until I figure something out.

If the battery is 3+ years old draining it completely may have damaged one or more of its cells. Have the battery load tested or drop in a new one (it probably needs one anyway).

Put in new battery and still the same thing. Would start, run about 10 seconds then die. Had it towed to shop and mechanic drove it for 2 days and said it started and ran fine. He didn't charge me anything but I still don't know what was going on. Oh well, it's running again, for now.

Leave the cables on for 10-15 min before you start the van. This will allow the batery to charge a little bit longer. My guess is that your alternator is dead so the car will start but quickly uses up the charge and dies out. Your car probably would not create enough power to run both so the van dies do to the alternator being dead. That is where I would look first.