Tue, July 23, 2002
By JOEY HAWS
Standard-Examiner staff
HARRISVILLE -- Two children were in critical condition Monday night and three other people were injured when the tire tread separated on the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in, causing the vehicle to roll several times.
Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Dino Diamanti said the five members of the Jonathan Connor family, of Oklahoma, were traveling southbound on Interstate 15 just past the Harrisville on ramp around 1 p.m. when the Firestone Wilderness AT on the rear, passenger-side wheel blew. The blowout caused the Nissan Pathfinder to swerve into the median where it flipped two or three times, Diamanti said.
Three children, ages 16, 13 and 9, sitting in the back seat and apparently not wearing seat belts, were ejected. The driver, Jonathan Connor, 34, and his 11-year-old daughter were buckled up in the front seats. Diamanti said the three kids in the back seat were all asleep and had been thrown out the window, two of them landing in the northbound lanes of traffic.
"This was a bad one," Diamanti said. "Those kids were lying all over the place."
The 9-year-old boy was flown from the scene by medical helicopter to Primary Children"s Medical Center in Salt Lake City. His condition was improving and was not considered to be life threatening Monday night.
However, his 13-year-old brother, also flown to Primary Children"s hours later after being stabilized at McKay-Dee Hospital, received multiple skull fractures and a badly broken femur. His injuries were considered life threatening.
Firestone Wilderness AT tires came under scrutiny in August 2000 when the Bridgestone/Firestone Company recalled more than 6.5 million tires believed to have a defect that caused the tread to separate from the rest of the tire. Eventually, the recall grew to 14 million tires by May 2001.
The tire company was being investigated by federal safety officials in connection with more than 170 deaths in the United States. In many cases, the tread separated from the tire, causing blowouts and rollovers. The controversy included the Ford Motor Company, which put many of the Firestone Wilderness AT tires on its Ford Explorers.
According to a report released in October of last year from the U.S Department of Transportation"s National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the tread separations looked at in the investigation reduced the ability of a driver to control the vehicle, particularly where the failure occurred on a rear tire and at high speeds.
The likelihood of such a crash, and of injuries or fatalities, was determined to be far greater when the tread separation occurs on an SUV than when it occurs on a pickup truck, the report stated.