On the way to the ranch an 18 wheeler lost its driver side tire on a narrow FM 462. It flew up into the air and the truck swerved completely into our lane about 50-75 yards in front of us. Somehow, the driver was able to correct it and pulled it all the way back across into his lane to avoid a head on with us.
After I caught my breath, my first thought was how mad I was earlier that morning when my daughter A’Dell had locked us out of the house, making us about 30 seconds behind where we would have been. God works in mysterious ways.
I dropped off my kiddos A’Dell and baby Tucker at the ranch, and hugged their sweet smiling little faces, who had no idea how close we came to hitting that big rig head-on just a few minutes ago.
On my way back into town I pulled over and stopped to give that driver a bottle of water and say thank you while he was waiting to get his truck and tire repaired.
“You’re a good driver. I don’t know how you pulled that truck back to the other side,” I told him.
“That was you?” he asked.
“Yes, me and my baby and my 10 yr old little girl,” I replied.
He shook his head and with a crackle in his voice, he said “To tell you the truth, I have no idea how I did it either. Thanks for stopping and thanks for the water.”
We stayed a good 20 feet apart, but I bet he had as many tears in his eyes as I did.
I was so choked up when I walked up to thank that trucker, I never asked his name or quite mutter out these words I wanted to say, but “Mr. Trucker….thanks for saving our lives this morning!”
After this experience, it got me to wondering, what is the right thing to do when you have a blowout in your driver’s side tire.
This is the most reliable explanation I could find: “A blowout on a steer tire will cause the truck to drop to the side of the blown tire and to begin pulling in that direction. An untrained driver’s natural instinct once that pull is felt at the steering wheel would probably be to pull the wheel back in the opposite direction and to apply the brakes. Depending on the driver’s reaction to the event, the steering-wheel pull and the brake application could be severe. Those two actions are exactly the wrong things to do. The correct approach is to apply full acceleration and adjust the steering wheel to maintain a straight-forward course keeping the truck in the lane. Applying full power will accomplish most of that work, with a gentle correction of the steering required only to maintain directional control.”
By Kayleen Holder
THE DEVINE NEWS
Editor