Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Changing Tire with Shotgun: not a good an idea - Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A man suffered from a different kind of tire blowout accident when he attempted to loosen a stiff wheel-nut with a shotgun. The 66-year-old man from South Kitsap, 10 miles southwest of Seattle, Washington, had been working on his Lincoln Continental for two weeks. He had managed to loosen all the nuts but one. When it refused to budge, the man got his 12-gauge shotgun, stood about an arm's length from the vehicle, and fired a buckshot round. Of course, the man was sprayed with buckshot and debris from his feet to his chin, although he only suffered injuries as high as his abdomen.

Remarkably, alcohol was not a factor in this firearm "accident," only extreme frustration. I would recommend the following steps to remove a stuck wheel nut:

1. WD-40 is a great start
2. Get leverage with an extension for your tire iron. I have a 2 ½ foot pipe I use.
3. An impact wrench or other specialized tool is handy.
4. Call someone to come out, AAA or a mobile mechanic.
5. Never use a firearm under any circumstances.

While I would not advocate that guns should have labels, "Warning: Not to be used as tire-iron," firearms are inherently dangerous products, subject to many forms of liability. Also, there are questions about the man's attempt to change his tire, such as whether the nuts had been over-tightened by the service technician who put the tire on the car in the first place.

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