I had a flat tire. Went to a local garage i used all the time owned by an old classmate. Got it fixed. A couple days later i drove 40 miles to take my wife to a Dr. appointment. We were almost there when I started hearing noise. I kept going for a while then stopped, got out and looked at everything, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Hmmmm. We continued on and soon was in the middle of a massive downpour. The noise was still there and getting progressively worse. I was concerned now.
All of a sudden, doing 45 mph, a loud bang, the car lurched hard and my left rear tire passed me. There it went, down the road and across, into the large wide ditch that was full of water already. It was out there floating away. Damn! Only one way to fix this. I got out in the downpour, went across the highway, waded out into the ditch which by now was probably 30 ft. wide with water and I waded out and retrieved the tire. Getting in unknown water is NOT my favorite thing to do. But i got the tire and walked back with it, trying to decide what to do next. As I was standing there a car came by. It was a fairly busy road at rush hour and this was quitting time about 4PM. The man pulled over to help and I saw it was someone I bowled with in a Monday night league. He lived in the same town we did and he gladly took us home. I was sooo appreciative. I would have done the same thing for anybody else for sure.
I called the garage and kinda raked my friend a little. He had to pay for the car to be towed to town and then still fix it. Luckily the wheel had just come off from loose lug nuts that his NEW kid hadn't tightened. That kid was fired. My car wasn't damaged other than the lost lug nuts that matched my chrome wheels and I got it fixed and went on my way. I can laugh about it now, especially the part about watching the tire pass me. Cracks me up. Luckily it happened on an empty road though and not the jam-packed freeway. I wasn't a happy camper at the time for sure.
