race site help question

My wife was doing her first tri today and had some troubles about 1 mile into the bike. She got a flat and I think she just got so frustrated she was unable to change it. So she hauled her bike all the way back to the transition area and as she was walking by somebody asked her for her timing chip. As she kind of looked at the guy and started to take it off he said in a surprised way, "well your not going to go back out are you?" So she gave him her timing chip and walked to the race site help area to get her tire changed. This really bummed her out and I think she would have went right back out after getting it changed but she thought she was basically out of the race because her chip was gone. My question is this, are you disqualified from the race if you get outside help in changing a tire? It wasn't like she was going to win anything. It was her first tri and she just wanted to finish the thing. I tried to talk her into just doing the 4 mile run but she had kind of lost her spirit at that time. Anyway, just curious as to what the normal protocal for something like that is. As a side note, when we got home she practiced changing her tire 3 times and signed up for a 4th of July tri that we will now do together.