Close call: Flying hunk of metal embeds into Edmonton driver’s vehicle on QEII highway

Wayne MacDonald was driving with his seven-year-old daughter on the afternoon of July 12, when he saw something go flying and heard a thump. A big thump.

“There was a vehicle in front of us and she had just changed lanes … about 100 or so yards away, so I was quite far back. It looked like she hit a hubcap or something.”

He was driving north on the QEII highway near Nisku, where the speed limit is 110 km/h, and said there was no time to react.

“It happened so fast. I saw this thing flying, and I thought, ‘Oh,’ and it connected with my driver’s side fender and I heard an incredible noise. And I thought, ‘Well maybe it’s something that hit the grill. Like maybe a piece of tire or something.”

MacDonald knew it probably left some damage, but decided to wait to check it out when they got to their home in northwest Edmonton’s Castle Downs area.

“I got out and looked, and there was that disc sticking out of the fender!”

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MacDonald’s wife posted the photos on Facebook, where friends helped determine that the metal hunk was a dust cover from the brake housing of a tractor trailer.

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He hasn’t contacted authorities yet and doesn’t know whose vehicle the part came from, so trying to trace it back to the owner seems fruitless.

“If I saw the piece actually come off a vehicle then of course, but it was laying there and what sent it flying was just another vehicle that ran over it.”

MacDonald said the part went all the way into the frame of the vehicle, and he had to pound it out with a hammer. He said if he hadn’t been driving so far back, he may have ended up decapitated.

“The guy at the body shop said, ‘if you had been following closer, the trajectory of this disc would have probably hit in the driver’s side.'”

“You don’t have to be a forensic analyst to determine that it probably would have been not so good for me if it hit the windshield, or my daughter in the back seat.”

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He reported the damage to his insurance company, which is treating it the same as if he’d hit a deer on the road, and he has to pay his $1000 deductible to get the damage fixed.

“Needless to say, it’s not something you see every day.”