Interesting but highly unlikely. First, if a failure like that occurs nobody just welds the hole shut and installs a new nut. You go in there and search for the cause of the failure, as you dont want it to happen again. If the story you describe happened I bet they at least replaced rod bolts/studs for the particular rod and while at that possibly put a new bearing in there. That's at the very least what I'd expect if they didn't find the root cause.