YOU'D think hitting a truck tyre at a 100kmh would be a one-in-a-million experience, but it turns out that Sunshine Coast couple Stephen and Roslyn Hughes aren't the only ones.
After reading The Morning Bulletin's story yesterday on Stephen and Roslyn's brush with death on the highway, Mackay's Glen Swindells said he experienced something very similar in 2010 travelling west of Mackay at Waitara, 3km west of Nebo.
"It was 8.15am on the third of August. I was heading into Nebo doing 100 kmh and a truck and dog (road train) was heading towards me," Glen recalled.
"It (the truck) blew the rear tyre on the dog trailer and I copped the whole tyre in the front of my van."
Glen said the people in the ute behind him stopped to check on him. "I was okay; just a bit shaken... (but) the worst part about it is the truck kept going, never even stopped," he said.
"I couldn't even dodge the tyre as I would have rolled down an embankment. I rang the police, they couldn't come to me."
Glen said he had to drive back to Mackay with a smashed van, but when the police finally came around to look at the damage they told him he was lucky to be alive.
"If it had of hit three inches lower I wouldn't be here. It cost me $1500 to get it back on the road," he said.
"The police said it was a civil matter and there was nothing they could do about it as none of us got the rego of the truck.
"I said to them, rego was the last thing on my mind when you're trying to dodge rubber coming at you at 100kmh, so I rang all the tyre places from Mackay to Rockhampton, Emerald and all out west (and got), no response."
Senior Constable Liam Scanlan of Westwood police, who attended the incident on the Capricorn Hwy with Stephen and Roslyn, said he had some leads regarding the truck driver.
"It is an offence to leave the scene of an accident and there is a law for securing loads, but this is something that doesn't happen in my division very often," Sen. Const. Scanlan said.
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