Abstract: At 8:10 a.m. on May 22, 1991, Employee #1 was inflating a 9.5/9-24 front-lugged tire for a Kubota M4500 LT 4-wheel drive orchard tractor. He had patched the tube and was inflating it to seat the bead when the unrestrained tire exploded. He was taken to Rideout Emergency Hospital in Marysville, where he was treated for a ruptured spleen, broken ribs, and a crushed wrist. Employee #1 later stated that he remembered hearing the explosion but not much else, and he believed that he had been thrown against an adjacent wall. He also thought there was approximately 60 pounds of pressure in the tire when it exploded, but that he could not read the manually-operated valve. Employee #1 indicated that he had complained about this hand valve 2 weeks before the accident.