Elderly woman avoided injury from wayward truck tires by postponing afternoon nap

An elderly woman avoided potential injury after a pair of semi truck tires came crashing through her bedroom during what should have been her nap time. 

91-year-old Della Ogletree says she is usually napping at her home in LAGrange, Georgia by 4 p.m., but on Tuesday, August 30th, something told her to get something to eat instead – a decision that may have saved her life. 

“Something just kept telling me go take your blood pressure, and your sugar and then go fix you something to eat,” Ogletree said. As she was doing that “it appears that an 18 wheeler was traveling on the roadway when a set of tires with wheels (tandems) broke off the trailer and rolled, striking the home,” LaGrange police said in a statement to FOX 13. “The tires and wheels were heavy enough and were moving fast enough to break through the exterior of the home.”

The wheels crashed through her bedroom and a second room before coming to a stop. 

“When I got here and saw the damage it was just unreal, she could have been killed,” said Barbara Davis, a friend of Ogletree.

A witness reported seeing a semi truck’s tires break off and roll away from the truck on a nearby roadway, but didn’t see them crash into the home. The witness was only able to describe the trailer, which was a white dry van. It is not clear if the driver knew that the tires came off at the time of the incident. No further information has been released.