Death Defying Moments.

[The Lady Belle]

Last Saturday 6th August we picked up a new set of tyres and fancy rims for our 4x4. On Sunday my husband changed all 5 tyres on the truck for the new ones and I watched him use the rattle gun to secure the 6 nuts on the rear passenger tyre. After he rattle guns the nuts on he then checks the tightness by using the tyre iron just to be sure.

Sunday afternoon we went up to John Hunter Hospital to visit my girlfriend whos in there for a few months. This is the only time we've been out on Sunday and the only time the car has been out of sight since the tyre exchange.

Monday Steve drives me to and from work work and the rest of the time the truck is at home. When he picks me and my sister up from work we go to the hospital again to visit my girlfriend. The second time the car is out of our sight since the tyre exchange.

We're there for a few hours and then my sister asked to be dropped of at one of the shopping malls. As we're driving from the hospital we both notice that there is a shimmy to the car. The radio antennas on the front of the bullbar a oscillating madly. We thought it might be a flat spot on one of the new tyres or that maybe the wheel alignment is out because of the new larger tyres.

After dropping my sister off we're halfway home and the car suddenly vibrates worse and CLUNK!!! the truck is at a crazy angle and the rear passenger tyre proceeds to bounce its way down the highway. All I can say is:

"Oh shit! oh shit! oh shit!"

The tyre is bouncing 5 to 7 feet high into the air and its a big heavy tyre and when it comes in contact with something its gonna hurt...bad.

Im terrified that the tyre is gonna kill someone or cause a bigger accident but luckily and unluckily it comes down on the leading edge of an on-coming cars bonnet, smashing the passenger headlight and leaving a big dint then starts bouncing back up the highway to Steve (who had exited the truck to try and stop the tyre from doing anymore damage).

Steve managed to pull the truck up in a righthand turning lane, right at the very end of it where the lane merges back into the main traffic.

The car that the tyre hit stopped in the side street and I got out ready to exchange insurance details. I looked to see where Steve was and when I looked back the car had disappeared. Either the car wasnt damaged badly (not likely) or the driver was either inlicenced/uninsured themselves or maybe even stolen?

The traffic behind us missed us but where we stopped it was bad because it meant that Steve would be on the inside lane when jacking the car up.

A car behind us stopped and helped Steve gather all six nuts where they came off within a few metres of each other. Steve had trouble jacking the truck up high enough because of the angle the truck was at and the road camber. A passing tow truck driver lent us a few blocks of wood to give us the added lift we needed.

When Steve managed to get a few nuts on he moved the truck onto the traffic island out of harms way then he put on the rest of the nuts. We drove back to the service station the tow truck driver came from and gave him back is wood and left him $20 for his help.

At home Steve took the tyre off and checked the brake disc for damage since that was what we coasted to a stop on on the highway. We luckily only did a little bit of damage on the disc, it had its outside edge ground down but its not warped in anyway and thats the only damage we did.

It was very suspicious that all 6 nuts came off at the same time/place and the rest of the nuts on the other tyres are still on tight. To me it feels like that the nuts were loosened by someone at the hospital because they are the only two times the truck hasnt been within our sight. We've left an incident report at the Security office at the hospital and they were concerned that something like that has happened.

Since then we've checked all tyres before driving anywhere and we double checked them yesterday before leaving the hospital carpark after visiting my girlfriend again.

The tyre is roughly 40 kilograms and it was travelling faster than 60 kph. If it had hit a person it could have killed them. Im feel sick when I think of what could have happened and all because of some stupid person(s) wanted to have some fun by loosening our tyre nuts. I hope they hurt themselves when they did it because the rattle gun puts nuts on tight!

[cherrysis]

OmG Belle that is awful!!! I just cannot imagine how terrifying that ride was and "oh shit" would have been my words of choice as well!!!
Thank God No one was hurt!!! Why in the world would someone do something so horrific? We are having problems with a sniper shooting cars on a few major highways here. Who ever it is is only hitting SUV's at this point nobody has been injured but..........


I am so glad you and Steve (or anyone else) were not harmed!!!!

[cherrysmum]

That is terrible..but FYI there are people who do stuff like loosen lug nuts or take the safety chains off a tow bar..then follow to see the wreck...they are like pyromaniacs..when we travel we always check the vehicle to be sure no one has tampered with it..curse you thrill seekers!!!!

[Dr.Evil]

Awww, thats nothin! I once shot a moose in my pyjamas......

Wait for it!

How did the moose get into my pyjamas (slapping desk with my hand and making snorting noises as I laugh)

Ohh, sorry (crawls back under the porch and waits)

[Lefty]

Oh my. Why would people do such a thing? (When they don't really, really hate you.) Insanity's rampant these days. This year a lady was killed over here when people threw a brick on her windshield as she was passing a highway underpass. Just for laughs. Insane! Some people should be shot, because there's just no helping individuals who don't have the cognitive capacity to realize the consequences of their evil stupidity.

[cherrysmum]

cmon sarge...lets see the moose you got packed away in your jammies...curse you brick and rock throwers....Yeah..a cinder block killed a woman when it was thrown off an overpass in the states...crushed her head....she had a lot of kids too..very sad...

[Lefty]

Shoot evil idiots: protect the gene pool. Sounds like a Ross Perot campaign slogan.

[The Lady Belle]

We had a spate of incidents where people were killed by large rocks being thrown off overpasses onto oncoming traffic on the freeways. So now all our bridges that cross over roads, be they road or pedestrian bridges, have large wire screens all along the sides or in some cases the bridge is caged in so nothing can get thrown.

[The Lady Belle]

Hey Sarge hon. I wanna see that moose too. Ya been teasing me with it for years now *waits patiently* [img]tongue.gif[/img]