WICHITA, Kansas – It was
noon on Saturday when a 39-year-old man was filling his tire up at a south
Wichita service center.
In a matter of seconds, the seemingly routine task went terribly wrong.
“Having a tire explode is an unusual event,” Sedgwick County EMS Captain Mike Buchanan said.
However, that is just what happened. Sedgwick County EMS says the tire exploded while on the car. The man was critically hurt as the blast injured his arm and nearly severed his leg.
“It basically has the same type of injuries as an explosion does, because it’s a projectile that flung out with a lot of force behind it,” Buchanan said. “It can just cause devastating injuries to the human body. It’s no different then a bomb going off and throwing shrapnel out.”
That type of blast has occurred twice in Sedgwick County in just a month. It is a situation that leaves emergency personnel wondering just what’s going on. While it’s unclear what happened in this latest incident, most agree there was likely damage to the tire itself.
"When they start deflating and people air them up, and they deflate, and they air them up again, this can causes damage to the tires especially in the sidewall to the tire," Holleicke Perring Tire's Lyle Brumbaugh said.
That situation weakens the tire and can possibly lead to an explosion. That’s why experts say anytime your tire has lost more than 20 percent of its pressure; it should be checked by a professional.
"Nobody thinks anything about airing a tire up, and then somebody gets injured doing that," Buchanan said.
