[icemann427]

I was driving eastbound on a freeway where I live in fairly heavy traffic. While a local bigger delivery truck was next to me in the fast lane and partially blocking my view, I somewhat saw an accident occurring on the westbound side fast lanes of the freeway where some vehicles plowed into the back of some stopped ones. Still watching, as debris was exploding everywhere, I saw a half rear axle with wheel/tire attached to it flying up into the air perhaps over a 100' high. Watching it, I could tell it was going to come down on my side of the freeway and was just praying it would not land on my truck. As luck would have it, it landed in the lane just to my right and took a couple of very high bounces before bouncing over the guardrail to the right of the eastbound lanes. Thankfully, it did not hit any other vehicles and I thought I had just won the lotto by it missing me by no more than a few feet. Unfortunately, I started to feel my passenger rear tire go flat and merged three lanes to the right and took the first exit that was just ahead. I pulled off of the surface street at the end of the exit, changed the tire, and made my way to a well known tire shop where I purchased the tires. Of course, the tire repair employee said the tire was ruined and said I would need another which they happened to have. When he walked out to me, he showed me a 6" long piece of chromed slightly arced metal which obviously was part of the broken off lip of the wheel that flew over the center divide, landed next to me, and pierced the tire ending up inside the tire and wheel

So short story made long, I was so lucky the axle didn't puncture my roof and skewer me or the wheel/tire didn't crash through my windshield. I still have that broken piece of that wheel...lol