Tower we are going to be in the Hudson

ol Bombero-JC wrote:
In keeping the thread "grounded" (so to speak).....

Besides birds into windshields - and things flying out of the back of pickups, flat-beds, etc. - here's one from when I was in the emergency business.

We get a call for a traffic accident on the (very) busy 405 Freeway in Orange County, CA

Find the LEO's and one vehicle (car) with a smashed front window on the Southbound side of the freeway.
Woman on the passenger side with moderate injuries.

No other vehicle around - so ask the Chippy if there's another vehicle involved - that somehow we've missed.

Ans.....
"The car was hit by a tire and wheel while traveling at about 65 mph".

Huh?
(Actually TWO vehicles were traveling at about 65mph "previously" - and then..... there was 3!)

The injured folks were traveling Southbound on the freeway.
A vehicle (car) on the other side of the freeway (Northbound) lost a wheel -at freeway speed- which bounced over the center divider and hit the on-coming Southbound car in the windshield.
(lots of near-miss witnesses).

Sure enough - there's a car about a 1/8 of a mile away on the shoulder of the Northbound side - with only a front brake drum on the pavement where the left front tire and wheel should be.
No injuries there. (Just maintenance issues?)

OK - so we got that part solved.......but we're scratching our heads wondering - - where is the (still) missing wheel???...:h

One of the guys points upwards..........
Yikes!
About 150 feet further down the road "impaled" on an *overhead* freeway sign is the errant tire and wheel!!

That wheel and tire had to have bounced about 30 feet *UP* to land "up there".

The folks on the "receiving end" were:
Unlucky - -or- - very lucky, as it could have been lots worse!


~

We have a corn field near the highway. While harvesting the corn one fall we once found a perfectly good Semi truck wheel out in the middle of the field. At least 30 yards from the road. There were no tracks leading to it. It must have bounced that far.

We kept it and put it on our semi the next time we had a flat.