Woman thankful to be alive after flying tire hit her car while driving home from work in Dallas
DALLAS - A North Texas woman lost her car, but not her life, when her car was hit by a tire that was flying through the air as she was driving home from work.
A life-threatening story that could have had a very different ending if the tire had moved a couple of feet in another direction.
"I'm driving home from work. I'm going north on 35, right before the Oak Lawn exit," Eulonda Cooper recalled.
Cooper's eye caught something in the air.
"I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a drone, maybe a bird or something, and when I noticed what it was, I said, ‘That's a big a** tire,’ and it was coming straight for me. I didn't know what to do," Cooper said. "I'm driving, but I didn't know what to do. If I go faster, will it pass me? But at this moment, I don't know what to do and I’m just trying to look at it. I didn't want to look off, so I won't be blindsided, so I just ducked my head. As a kid, if something was falling down, I ducked my head and said, ‘Lord forgive me.’"
The fast traveling flying tire smashed into Cooper's car.
"I literally think I’m dead. I open my eyes to realize I’m not dead. My hood is up, the airbags are out, and I’m in the middle of the highway," Cooper recalled.
Cooper survived the rare but real freak flying tire incident.
But her car was a smashed and mangled mess.
She found her phone and called 911.
"I remember somebody asking me, ‘Did the car that hit you kept going?’ I said, ‘It wasn't a car, it was a tire. It was in the mid-air coming down,’ and so one of the officers looked and said, ‘There's the tire right there,’" Cooper said.
"We know from AAA studies that two-thirds of these types of crashes that involve road debris are from a vehicle that has lost a secure load, or they've had an object, like a tire, come off of their vehicle because they weren't properly maintained," said Daniel Armbruster, with AAA. "One of the best things to do is try to look 12 to 15 seconds, scan the roadway, try to leave room on the side. Of course that's difficult in rush hour traffic. I know in this particular incident that wasn't a possibility, and it always isn't, and of course, if all you can do is slow down, try to do that, and of course make sure your seat belt is buckled."
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A freak accident took Cooper’s 2020 Nissan Altima, but she walked away with something that can't be replaced.
"I'm most thankful to be alive right now. I can always get another car because my life literally flashed before my eyes," she added.
Cooper is now relying on others for a ride or taking DART, but she’s grateful to be here to tell the story.
One that could happen to anyone driving in North Texas.