One of our drivers today was telling me of an incident which happened last week up near York. A driver had a bent rim on his trailer so he took it back to the garage to get it fixed. So, he picked up a sledge hammer to knock the rim back into shape best he could but on impact the tyre blew out. This resulted in his foot being blown off by his ankle and later found 80 yards away with his boot still on, the tyre also shredded and slashed his face until he was unrecognisable and the air from the tyre actually entered his body and blew him up to twice his size. Never ever again will I attempt any repair where a tyre is involved! This guy is lucky to be alive and it just goes to show how trying to help someone out or save a bit of money can go horribly wrong.
Trucking hell! 
I know you wouldn’t believe it would you! Apparently they did manage to save his foot and reattach it. I can’t remember exactly but our tyre fitter once told me that there is the equivalent of 600+tons of pressure in a fully inflated wagon tyre. No way I want to be getting in the way of that!
bit like that bloke the other week who fell on his airline and it went up his backside
i had a tyre on a 7.5t blow while i was pumping it up it blew me back 10 ft and i couldnt hear i 1 ear for a week i think i got of lightly
had a few tyres blow up which is why i stand to 1 side when inflating tyres…have seen a young lad who i told off a short time ago for leaning against a tyre while inflating it…
same as you dont go picking stones out of the tread on a hot tyre in case it blows up,which happended to the poor bloke on the A14 near copdock a few years ago.
I must be getting old, but I remember the split rims , and trust me anyone who didnt inflate them inside a steel cage needs his head testing or would lose it…
jayeastanglia:
had a few tyres blow up which is why i stand to 1 side when inflating tyres…have seen a young lad who i told off a short time ago for leaning against a tyre while inflating it…
same as you dont go picking stones out of the tread on a hot tyre in case it blows up,which happended to the poor bloke on the A14 near copdock a few years ago.
ok thats me stopping to do that then
that makes me old then 
lucky fella
There was a picture about some years ago concerning a guy who was sitting on a laid down tractor tyre blowing it up when the split rim failed.
There was an impression of this guy spreadeagled on the ceiling before he came down to ground level,stone dead!
Rikki-UK:
I must be getting old, but I remember the split rims , and trust me anyone who didnt inflate them inside a steel cage needs his head testing or would lose it…
Wot ! they don’t use them anymore ? Next thing you’ll be telling me is there’s no more spokes.
Seriously though, there’re more horror stories about tyres than I’ve had hot dinners. I’m glad to say that the closest I’ve come is blowing a car retread off the rim while I was waiting for it to seat. I had trousers and a boiler suit on and it still turned my legs a luvverly shade of purple.
xfmatt:
One of our drivers today was telling me of an incident which happened last week up near York. A driver had a bent rim on his trailer so he took it back to the garage to get it fixed. So, he picked up a sledge hammer to knock the rim back into shape best he could but on impact the tyre blew out. This resulted in his foot being blown off by his ankle and later found 80 yards away with his boot still on, the tyre also shredded and slashed his face until he was unrecognisable and the air from the tyre actually entered his body and blew him up to twice his size. Never ever again will I attempt any repair where a tyre is involved! This guy is lucky to be alive and it just goes to show how trying to help someone out or save a bit of money can go horribly wrong.
That soulds like [zb], but the rest is pretty scary!
bestbooties:
There was a picture about some years ago concerning a guy who was sitting on a laid down tractor tyre blowing it up when the split rim failed.
There was an impression of this guy spreadeagled on the ceiling before he came down to ground level,stone dead!
I remember that.Picture was on the front page of the Express,about forty years ago.
Rikki-UK:
I must be getting old, but I remember the split rims , and trust me anyone who didnt inflate them inside a steel cage needs his head testing or would lose it…
I’m from way back then and believe me, when you see you’ve got the inner tube trapped between the wheel and one of those split rims whilst you’re inflating it, it doesn’t half make your sphincter flutter…
And then you’ve got to dismantle the whole thing and start again. The air was seriously dark blue when I had to do that at a truck stop on the Hume highway in about 1977!
Rikki-UK:
I must be getting old, but I remember the split rims , and trust me anyone who didnt inflate them inside a steel cage needs his head testing or would lose it…
yea always stand to the side of the tyre, still use split rims on loading shovels and dumpers, always use the bucket of a 20tonner placed on the split rim when working on them, they give me the creeps!
no a boy that died 2-3 years ago due to a split rim failing, he wasnt even working on it, mearly walking past a machine when it suddenly went off.
I remember that picture too, I’m 48 but may have seen a copy of it long after it was published, it was early 80s when I saw it IIRC.
Also remember being at the customs compound in Budapest and hearing an almightly bang, then seeing part of a split rim about 200 foot high and still climbing, with several Turks scattering in all directions.
Luckily it landed on some waste ground over the fence, bet every driver in there was watching where it went
dave_k:
xfmatt:
One of our drivers today was telling me of an incident which happened last week up near York. A driver had a bent rim on his trailer so he took it back to the garage to get it fixed. So, he picked up a sledge hammer to knock the rim back into shape best he could but on impact the tyre blew out. This resulted in his foot being blown off by his ankle and later found 80 yards away with his boot still on, the tyre also shredded and slashed his face until he was unrecognisable and the air from the tyre actually entered his body and blew him up to twice his size. Never ever again will I attempt any repair where a tyre is involved! This guy is lucky to be alive and it just goes to show how trying to help someone out or save a bit of money can go horribly wrong.That soulds like [zb], but the rest is pretty scary!
Bull? …
http://menknowpause.fooyoh.com/menknowpause_lifestyle_living/6152167
The link is somewhat believable, but I doubt the air from a tyre could manage to inflate someone though. You’d need a high pressure source with some reasonable precision and steady air flow for that, in order for the air to get between layers of skin and tissue, causing the inflation. A tyre explosion is far too messy and instantaneous, and air would inevitably get into the bloodstream - once that’s happened, you’re pretty much as good as dead. That’s my reckoning anyways…
Either way, be weary of damaged and inflating tyres, I certainly am!
Have a read of JayesEastAnglia post about the tyrefitter who was killed a couple of years ago in Bury St Edmunds.
Air pressure is one of the most dangerous things a driver or a tanker man has to deal with.
Found it in 2008
04/08/2008
A worker has died after the heavy-lorry tyre he was fitting exploded in his face.
The man, named locally as 27-year-old Martin Bacon, was inflating the tyre on a 17-tonne tanker at an industrial estate in Sudbury, Suffolk, when the accident happened.
Two ambulance crews and an air ambulance rushed to the scene to treat the man but he was later pronounced dead.
Colleagues of the deceased man said he was an employee of Great Cornard firm Dial-A-Tyre.
A spokesman for Chilton Grain, which owns the entire site in Waldingfield Road, said the man had been on the site changing the tyre on the tanker lorry for about an hour.
“While he was inflating the tyre on the heavy lorry it failed and exploded. The force hit him in the head and he was knocked under the trailer,” he said.
“Ambulance crews spent about 20 minutes trying to revive him.”
Suffolk Police are treating the death as an industrial incident and the Health and Safety Executive have started an investigation.
Split rims were dangerous, but so are supersingles or tubeless. You should never use any tools on an inflated tyre, or a pressure vessel.
Even this bloke would lose his head if the tyre failed, he should be stood at the end of the cage
Wheel Nut:
Have a read of JayesEastAnglia post about the tyrefitter who was killed a couple of years ago in Bury St Edmunds.Air pressure is one of the most dangerous things a driver or a tanker man has to deal with.
Found it in 2008
04/08/2008
A worker has died after the heavy-lorry tyre he was fitting exploded in his face.
The man, named locally as 27-year-old Martin Bacon, was inflating the tyre on a 17-tonne tanker at an industrial estate in Sudbury, Suffolk, when the accident happened.
Two ambulance crews and an air ambulance rushed to the scene to treat the man but he was later pronounced dead.
Colleagues of the deceased man said he was an employee of Great Cornard firm Dial-A-Tyre.
A spokesman for Chilton Grain, which owns the entire site in Waldingfield Road, said the man had been on the site changing the tyre on the tanker lorry for about an hour.
“While he was inflating the tyre on the heavy lorry it failed and exploded. The force hit him in the head and he was knocked under the trailer,” he said.
“Ambulance crews spent about 20 minutes trying to revive him.”
Suffolk Police are treating the death as an industrial incident and the Health and Safety Executive have started an investigation.
Split rims were dangerous, but so are supersingles or tubeless. You should never use any tools on an inflated tyre, or a pressure vessel.
thats the kid was only a few miles away when that happend his father was meant to be going to do that job but got called away to another more pressing job…
if any one ever gets a ats fitter ask them are they still shwon the video and pics of the split rim that went through the roof at ingham green dept(I think its ingham green not 100% sure) had 1 myself come apart but that was due to the split ring breaking in 3 or so bits…when i had my first go bang and on my first day on my own was in norwich town centre on a building site and was a 400x24 telehandler tyre knocked the driver on his back fromthe rush of air and knocked him out smashed the vans side window and got police and fire services out as they thought a bomb had gone off(H&S got involved and I was cleared off any wrong doing as someone had patched the tyre with 4 patches on top of each other)I no longer work for that company now but not due to that accident…