I think we need to look more closely at what we mean by 'bursting a few tyres'. Were any of the tyres deflated? Was that a core blowout due to overheat or a disruption of the carcass? Did one tyre on a bogie deflate putting loads on the other 3 cause them to deflate/disrupt? Was it merely loss of tread leaving the carcass inflated?
If groundcrew wouldn't approach the aircraft, what happened to the Emergency Services? In the UK, SOP would have been the declaration of an Aircraft Ground Incident (AGI). Firefighters in proper PPE for tyre/undercarriage problems would have approached the aircraft and carried out an initial assessment of its state before engineers would have been allowed near it. That's usually followed by wheel change before tow to stand. Are we saying the a/c was allowed to hobble off the runway and make its own way to the gate?
Tyre 'events' are very rare nowadays. 25 years ago, hardly a week of shifts went by without a call to go and pick up all the bits off the runway. I think we're down to about 3 or 4 incidents a year now, less than 1 per 75,000 movements (at LGW). Of these, hardly any involve deflation of a tyre, mostly separation of tread from carcass. Of course each event is still very serious, potentially leaving debris for the next a/c to ingest.
Of course the beauty of a rumour site is that it allows all the lovely speculation as above. Occasional facts leaven the dough, though!
You can substitute 'tire', 'truck' 'gear' etc as desired, if you really want to.
Cheers,
The Odd One