I jumped out of the van and ran around to the passenger’s side where a woosh of air escaping from the tire greeted me. My eyes immediately fell on to the oddly flat spot in a rim that should be round. That pothole I had hit just a hundred yards back had left and ugly dent in my rim and there was nothing I could do to keep the tire from going flat now!
Here’s a short video my friend Dennis took just after we stopped to change the flat tire.
Just 20 minutes before we hit the pothole I had told my friend Dennis, who was traveling with me, about how I had read the stories of people who had followed their GPS into the woods and then gotten stuck for days. That was right before our GPS took us on several miles of ancient cobblestone road in the middle of nowhere!
Usually I wouldn’t be that concerned about a situation like this. I mean we are in Ukraine and potholes and flat tires aren’t uncommon, at least for me there not!
This time however, we were in the middle of a forest in Eastern, Ukraine, on an old cobblestone road, in a place I’d never been before, with absolutely no one around, except maybe a few foxes and wolves. To complicate things further, it was a dark night with no moon and the temperature was hovering around 20 Fahrenheit.
“No problem, I’ve got the tools to get this tire off and put the spare tire on!”
I confidently proclaimed to Dennis.
About a month ago I purchased a heavy-duty tire iron because the one that came with the car just looked too wimpy and I was afraid it would break. I whipped out my shiny new spider wrench and went straight to work. The first thing I needed to do before jacking the car up was to break the lug-nuts free.
I placed the wrench on the first lug-nut and began to tug.
Nothing!
I tried again, this time putting a little more back into it.
Still nothing!
The lug-nut wouldn’t budge. I took a few steps back and regained my composure. We weren’t going anywhere until those lug-nuts came off!
This time I decided to try a different technique. Instead of simply pulling as hard as I could, tried using many quick jerking pulls.
Finally something began to give!
I kept going because I still didn’t feel like the lug-nut had completely loosened. I looked down to see what kind of progress I was making and that’s when I realized it was the wrench that was giving, not the lug-nut!
My brand new spider wrench was twisting like a pretzel!
It was no good, I wasn’t going to get the tire off with that wrench.
I went back to my tool box and pulled out the original tire iron. It bent quicker than the first one!
There was still one more chance. I had some older tools I had forgotten about under back seat.
“Praise the Lord, this may work yet!”
I thought to myself as I opened the old tool box and found a very sturdy 19mm socket along with a beefy looking wrench.
This time I used my foot and body weight to get some good torque on the wrench. As I stepped on the wrench I heard the sweet snap of the lug-nut as it broke free.
“Thank you God! It’s working!”
I moved around the wheel and with some effort each lug-nut budged just a little. Then I got to the last one. Once again I stepped on the wrench using the force of my entire body to break the lug-nut free.
The wrench moved but it felt and sounded different. I pulled the wrench off to investigate.
My socket had cleanly split in two. I had just ruined three wrenches and the flat tire was still firmly attached to the vehicle.
Now I’m starting to see how someone could get stranded for days by following their GPS into unknown areas.
This story is a getting a little long for me to share it all with you now. What I will tell you is that by a small miracle we did get out of there alive. We even made it to our destination in time for the graduation of 23 students in one of our Church based Bible schools.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story, I’ll be posting it tomorrow!
In the mean time take a look at some of the pictures from our graduation ceremony yesterday!
Loren Pinilis
December 11, 2014What? Why did the wrenches break? Was it just due to the cold?