Drivers drove over hundreds of screws they said spilled into the intersection at 50th and Frankford. Witnesses say they fell off the back of a local roofing company’s truck.
“This wasn’t my fault,” Stella Dempsey said. “I knew if I had slammed on my breaks, I would have caused an accident, and I couldn’t do that, so I just had to drive though it.”
Dempsey said the intersection looked like it was filled with glass.
“I don’t know. I mean, it just happened so fast,” Dempsey said. “I didn’t even know there was anything wrong with my tires until my neighbors told me and were really concerned about me.”
She made it all the way home, before her neighbors alerted her to her four flat tires.
“I was in tears. I called my kids in California because I was trying to go visit them,” Dempsey said. She was planning to take that car. “They said, ‘Mom don’t worry we will try to get the money.’”
Just down the street from the intersection, McWhorter Tire and Auto said they had been busy all day.
“Yeah people were very upset, understandably so,” Jason Hunt at McWhorter Tire and Auto said. “When you come in and see a tire with so many nails or screws in it, they are upset. It has been an interesting day.”
The repair shop saw over 10 customers, with 3 needing whole new sets of tires.
“As many calls as we have been getting and as many nails as have been in these tires and finishing screws…it is kind of unprecedented,” Hunt said. “People were trying to avoid it, but it was either cause an accident or run over the screws.”
Hunt said after two or three patches, you really need to replace the whole tire. McWhorter Tire and Auto saw customers with over 20 screws in them. One customer even had close to 50.
The roofing company accused of spilling the screws has now offered to pay for the replacement tires for affected customers at McWhorter Tire and Auto. EverythingLubbock.com was told by a spokesperson for the repair shop, the roofing company “wants to make it right.”
Stella Dempsey hopes someone will help pay for her flat tires, too.
“I’m a widow, I live on Social Security, I’m in section 8,” Dempsey said. “I can’t afford $500, plus tax, and whatever it costs for installation for tires.”
