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Tire blows up as man tries to pump it up in Bergen

By Billie Owens

A tire blew up when a 60-year-old man was pumping it up at Memorial Park on Route 19 in Bergen. He has a hand laceration. The location is a bench by the railroad tracks.

Bergen Fire Department and Mercy EMS responding.

Doug Yeomans

Amy, you should never use a tire gauge that's already on an air hose at a filling station. I do not trust them at all. They typically get beat up pretty badly, run over, mistreated, etc. You should have your own tire gauge and I prefer the digital models but they're unreliable when batteries become low in charge. Have a mechanical gauge in the vehicle, also, just in case.

Even though a tire is inflated to the proper pressure, there's no guarantee that it won't fail catastrophically. At one time I owned a 1 ton suburban and was stopped at a light, sitting still, not moving and BOOM! The tires were inflated to their proper 80 PSI and the entire sidewall blew out on the drivers side front tire. It sounded like a canon going off and I'm glad it didn't happen at highway speeds.

Jul 27, 2011, 6:04am Permalink

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