Posted on 06/04/2004 9:06:49 AM PDT by jtminton
FORT WORTH - The owner of an East Seminary Drive tire shop was killed Thursday night when the tire he was repairing burst as he worked in front of his wife and four children, police said.
The man, in his mid-40s, suffered severe head injuries about 7:45 p.m. as he worked in the parking lot of Texas Tires, 1245 E. Seminary Drive, police said.
"It was a really loud pop," said 10-year-old Tadea Rios, whose family was also having a tire repaired at the store. "It was so loud it was scary."
Friends identified the man as Abu Hassan, an Iraqi immigrant who owned the business for about seven years. They said he kept long hours, staying open seven days a week and working into the evenings.
"He was apparently using a torch to do some welding to the rim" of a tire from a trailer, said Lt. Gene Jones, a police spokesman. "Heat from the torch may have caused the tire to explode."
The rim was found about 25 feet away, Jones said. It was not clear what part of the tire caused the injuries.
Police led the man's wife and children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, back inside the business. Ministers who work with the Police Department came to counsel the family, he said.
Hassan was injured a few months ago when another tire burst, his friend Allen Yousef said.
"He is a great guy," Yousef said. "Very nice to everyone and all his customers.
"I just got call from someone who said, 'Your friend is dying over here.' It's so sad for his family."
Amar Sghyer said he heard the tire burst from his auto shop a half-mile away. He said working with tires can be more dangerous that some people think.
"I had this happen to me awhile ago, but I got out of the way just in time," he said. "It's terrible that this happened to him."
Hassan had moved here with his family from Basra, Iraq, Sghyer said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alex Branch, (817) 390-7689 abranch@star-telegram.com
That's a great story. :)
I was thinking along the same lines when I read the title of the post.
Split rims are notorious for separating and killing people. Now days theie done mostly in a cage to protect the worker.
Hear ya:
Back in the stone age I hired on as a welder's helper.
My main function was minding an old fashioned carbide acetylene generator.
Gotta be about the most dangerous things on the planet.
Your tip's too small, or the valve isn't open enough. The pressure drop across one of those is too high. There's a tip with diff. orifice size for each range of cutting thickness.
Not plausible at all, the more likely culprit would be Global Warming, of course!
I realize the tip was too small for what I was doing, and I should have gotten a bigger torch/tip (I don't always do exactly what I ought to) but if 14psi is the critical pressure, it should blow up before it ever gets to the red zone on the gauge.
That is iffy deal.
You might get away with it numerous times but you are "Pulling the Dragon's Tail".
Dragons have a tendancy to turn around and bite your head off...
That's right mistakes can be very costly. One of my gas suppliers had a pic hung in their showroom. It was of a stain on a grocery store parking lot. A customer had layed an oxygen tank in the back of his passenger vehicle and didn't take it out before the wife grabbed it to go shopping. The stain was all that was left of the vehicle and wife.
I've experienced some real nasty UV burns from small holes and other seamingly tiny cracks in the clothing. Might as well have put the torch there!
The gas store won't load a cylinder into an enclosed vehicle. That's what pickup trucks are for. They might set the cylinder on the ground next to the car, but then they say something about not putting it inside the car just as they walk away. An argon tank might be semi OK, but an oxygen tank? Never.
Anyway it seems like there has to be more to it than just pressure. The bulk of the acetylene is dissolved in acetone sitting in the clay in the bottom of the tank, and bubbles out into the space above the clay. When I turn on the valve, the pressure gauge tells me there is approx 200psi of gas pressure if the tank is full. That gas has to be acetylene, in a free gaseous state. And it doesn't go boom.
That is why plane captains check fighter jet aircraft out before they send them into the hot fuel skids as they taxi in. On hot days you want to get cold fuel into the jet to help cool down the pumps in the feed tanks and relieve tank pressure and jets will taxi into the fueling area after they land. Sometimes brakes will stick or lock and if the pilot does'nt catch the fact that he is using a little extra thrust to taxi he will heat up the brakes, rims, tires etc... and when the jet stops the wheels can explode and burn with a fire in the fueling area. Plane captains will kick and check the tires for signs of excessive heat prior to sending aricraft in for refueling. I have seen burning tires and crash crews sent out to extinguish hot brakes on landing gear more than once. Witnessed an A7 Corsair almost go up in flames and take out the fuel skid after the tire exploded and proceed to catch fire.
76834 any comments.
IIRC 45psi is the critical pressure at STP, but it is critical because of the rate of release from the tank. It is possible I don't RC.
Those tanks are completely filled with porous material.
Not really:
I know that the cylindar guage can read several hundred pounds depending on how much gas is in the tank.
But I NEVER EVER have cranked the secondary into the redline.
Maybe part of the reason I have managed to live this long (grin)
a spoon, a bar, and a massive tire hammer
lot's of power loosed if anything goes wrong
like a front-end car or truck spring suddenly coming at you
I still have a cut-down handle tire hammer I later used in construction and to intimidate morons
It will drive and bury a 16P and give you biceps and forearms like tree trunks
Perfect on your toolbelt for those little household problems too
I set up and managed that monster mega-story Good Year distributorship in Fort Apache
Our guys were from the 125th St area and were the best
Put an amateur on a tire machine just changing a standard tire on a simple steel car rim and you may see a finger or two disappear fast
A good pro can pull, mount, balance, and remount 4 tires so fast your head will spin
In western NC I had guys that worked in NASCAR crews weekends
They handled those monster construction equipment tires on road calls with fully equipped trucks, often alone
FReegards
Maybe a bit off topic we are really talking safety now..
A few years ago several idiots up in Abilene, TX were working on a car with a fuel line blockage. They didnt have an air compressor so they decided to try to clear the blockage with oxygen right out of the tip of a torch.
Pressured it up just back from the fuel pump, Last mistake they will ever make.
When the oxygen mated up with the hydrocarbons in the fuel tank everything within half a block was cleared.
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