Getting a flat tyre is one of the worst things that can happen in a moving vehicle short of actually crashing the thing.
Most of the world is plagued by too many pot holes, but I don’t think there’s a driver out there who’d be expecting to pull this kind of item out of your tyre.
Eric Polselli from Connecticut, was on his way to football when his ‘low tyre warning’ came up. ‘Oh no’, he thought, ‘I must have gone over a nail or something’.
So as not to be late for footie, he quickly popped home and changed it for his spare, but upon further investigation, he wasn’t expecting to pull this out.
Here’s the video of him extracting the item from his tyre:
Speaking to UNILAD about when the incident happened, 25-year-old Eric said:
So I was actually on my way to play some soccer on Wednesday when it happened.
I was getting off the highway and I heard a sound like I ran over something. Soon after my ‘low tyre pressure’ light came on and pulled into the nearest gas station.
I quickly lifted my car and swapped out the damaged wheel for my spare. When I saw that back end of the wrench sticking out I was in disbelief. I figured it must be either broken or sharpened somehow.
He explained how he reacted when it happened:
When I heard the sound I was pretty calm, I was around other cars and was hoping that the sound I heard had come from one of the other cars.
When my ‘low tyre pressure’ light came on the dashboard my reaction was more annoyed than aggravated.
As I mentioned I was heading to the field to play soccer and if I hadn’t had to stop and change the tyre I would have been right on time, but because of the incident I was about 10 minutes late. Also, I was wearing my socks and jersey while swapping the tre.
After work, Eric decided to take a look at exactly what happened with the wrench, and he started videoing because he wanted to show his friends.
To his surprise, the wrench was completely intact and the head was preventing him from pulling it all the way out, so he had to stop recording to get it out.
Eric explained how the ‘wrench wasn’t damaged at all’:
The wrench wasn’t damaged at all. I still have it and it still works perfectly. It’s a Craftsman 10mm.
I think the fact that the wrench was a 10mm probably contributed to the popularity of the story because 10mm wrenches are very commonly used and often misplaced.
The only way the wrench could have ended up in my tyre, based on the damage it did, was by me running over it.
I was just driving off of a bridge so I was thinking it may be possible that the wrench was lodged in between a space where the bridge meets the main road, but I didn’t see it before I hit it so I can’t know for sure.
Because of the huge hole that the wrench left, the tyre could not be repaired, but luckily Eric had a spare at home and quickly swapped them.
The old tyre was however much more worn than the one with a wrench stuck in it, which only had about 10k miles on it.
Even worse news, Eric said:
The tyre with the wrench in it only had about 10k miles on it, and I found out later that they don’t make these type of tyres any more so I may have to end up buying four new ones if I want them all to match.
Eric’s friends reacted with surprise and disbelief at the wrench being pulled out fully intact from the tyre.
Talking about the reaction to his video online, Eric said:
Luckily my sister was in the car with me at the time so somebody other than I could confirm that I didn’t just set this up for some joke.
Once I posted it on Reddit the reactions were all over the place. Many people thought it was funny and I can’t even tell you how many people said something like ‘I bet that threw a wrench in your plans’.
A few people commented on the fact that I never actually got the wrench all the way out in the video. This is because I was never planning on posting the entire video, I just wanted to show my friends what was in my tyre, and I had to put the phone down to get the wrench all the way out.
Eric was surprised at how many people kept telling him that he should have grabbed the wrench with his bare hands and pulled it out.
I have to say, when watching it, I did feel an urge to grab it with my bare hands, but as Eric said, with it being a small 10mm and pretty slippery, it’s ‘not the easiest thing to get a grip on bare-handed’.
The other thing that surprised him was the number of people who thought the video was fake.
If someone was going to create a fake video of anything in the world, I don’t think anyone would stick a wrench in a tyre.
Sounds like it’s cost him potentially four new tyres, but hey, free wrench.
You win some, you lose some.
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