College Girl Killed by 18 Wheeler Wheels
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Tulane student killed by flying tires at highway rest stop
By Associated Press March 6, 2019 | 4:32am
GAUTIER, Miss. ? Authorities say a Tulane University student was killed at an Interstate 10 rest stop in Mississippi when two tires came loose from a passing tractor-trailer and struck her.
News outlets report officials with the New Orleans school have identified the student as 21-year-old Margaret Maurer, of Forest Lake, Minnesota. Gautier police say the tractor-trailer was traveling westbound when it lost the wheels, which then crossed the eastbound lanes and entered the rest stop.
Authorities say Maurer and two friends were about to get back into their vehicle when the tires hit her and two cars. The rest stop was closed while the death was investigated. It?s unclear what caused the tractor-trailer?s tires to come loose.
Gautier lies just west of Pascagoula on the Mississippi coast.
NEWS
Tulane student killed by flying tires at highway rest stop
By Associated Press March 6, 2019 | 4:32am
GAUTIER, Miss. ? Authorities say a Tulane University student was killed at an Interstate 10 rest stop in Mississippi when two tires came loose from a passing tractor-trailer and struck her.
News outlets report officials with the New Orleans school have identified the student as 21-year-old Margaret Maurer, of Forest Lake, Minnesota. Gautier police say the tractor-trailer was traveling westbound when it lost the wheels, which then crossed the eastbound lanes and entered the rest stop.
Authorities say Maurer and two friends were about to get back into their vehicle when the tires hit her and two cars. The rest stop was closed while the death was investigated. It?s unclear what caused the tractor-trailer?s tires to come loose.
Gautier lies just west of Pascagoula on the Mississippi coast.
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Terrible way to die. Those tire/ wheel assemblies are heavy. 0 -
what a twist of fate to be at the exact small spot at the exact instance of time ...and sometimes it seems hard to blame simple coincidence 0 -
True and sad story. Believe me, I had one rolling down the interstate that came off a truck while I was driving!. I braked hard and it passed in front of me. IT DOES happen. What a sight of that thing bouncing along the road at a high rate of speed. :shock: 0 -
Many years ago I was sitting on the porch at my lake house when an 18 wheeler lost a tire on the highway in front of the house . It made it over 300 yards thru a field , coming to rest in my yard a few feet from whee I was sitting . That will get your adrenaline pumping . So sad and tragic , prayers for her soul and her family 0 -
Some friends of my folks had a tire/wheel almost come through the wall of their house one time. Came off a truck on I90, and went about 200 yards. It hit the house, but didn't quite make it through the wall. 0 -
This rest area is east bound on I 10 about 20 miles from the Alabama line. It is just before a big bridge over a bayou.
I have driven past this rest area more than 600 times and have pulled in there a dozen times. It is one of the old rest areas built when 18 wheelers were smaller, so it is tight and crowded I don't go in there too often. There is a huge nice new rest area 20 miles east at the Alabama line, that is where I like to go.
So sad to think of the coincidence, the girls were just getting back into the car, and the wheels happened to roll across the median at just that instant. Tragedy.0 -
I have noticed that in the past few years, many states are installing wire barriers for median dividers on interstates. Three cables held every 10 feet by a steel post. There are many miles of these new barriers.
There is no barrier on this stretch of road. A cable barrier would have stopped those tires.0 -
My best buddy in HS was driving down US 60 (divided 4-lane) when the brake drum came off a semi-trailer and went through the windshield of his car, killing his wife.
He just pulled a U-turn and went to the hospital but there was no hope.
Someone at a truck stop had taken off a flat tire but didn't put the lug nuts back on.0 -
one summer afternoon a few years ago a friends wife, son , and daughter got in their pickup to go to town 23 miles away ...headed north on the blacktop and a summer storm blew up with blinding rain so they pulled off the blacktop into a farmstead and parked to sit it out... a small tornado came thru and took a large cottonwood tree down crushing the cab over the front seat killing mom and son..daughter in the back seat was slighty injured...now several things had to come together exactly ...parking 3-4 ft different and a minute or two on the time and they all may have walked away..asked him how he managed to deal with it all and he replied my faith held me up and life goes on...i told him i thought he was the strongest person i had ever known 0 -
When it's your time, it's your time. I've seen lots of incidents where people lived or died because they stepped one way or the other etc at the right or wrong time. I watched our PD surveillance camera footage of a fatal crash a few blocks up the street. older woman in a H2 stopped at a stop sign and slowly pulled across a street meanwhile a scooter going less than 25 was proceeding up the street perpendicular, and they just happened to meet in such a fashion that the scooter was knocked over and she drove over it's rider killing him instantly....just a freak set of circumstances, nothing reckless, poor visibility, and timing led to his demise.....it was just his time. 0 -
This is why you check ALL your lug nuts when you do your pre-trip inspection. 0 -
I work at a Tractor Trailer, Trailer manufacturer. I am very close by, as these tires are torqued to a mandatory 500 ft/lbs with a 6' torque wrench, then photographed and documented by the Inspector in that area.
What happens when they leave, is another story.
I do recall, years ago, when I managed a very large Outdoor Adventure store on Rt. 17 in Paramus, NJ. That a wheel came off a Tractor Trailer, came across the median, and struck a woman/girl going in to the McDonald's. (Two stores over from us,) walked over there, many, many times, getting a meal.0 -
I stopped today at the rest area where this incident happened. I talked to a maintenance guy, who was on duty when the accident happened. 
The girls were parked where the dark grey sedan is parked in the middle of the photo. In front of this car to the right you can see some blue paint on the asphalt. These paint marks were made by State Troopers.
This blue paint is where the girl fell. The maintenance man told me that, believe it or not, the tire bounced over the oak tree.
The college girl was standing next to the car and the tire hit her in the head and went right on by, and went several hundred more feet in to the woods. He said that her brains and blood were splashed all over the asphalt.
This photo is looking across both lanes of Interstate 10. The Troopers marked in red paint the first spot where the bouncing wheel touched down.
This is the second spot where the wheels touched down. The wheels had to cross the big rig parking area. Usually this area is packed with big trucks so 9 times out of 10, the wheels would have hit the trailer of a big rig and that would have been the end of that.0
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