High winds in the Grand Rapids area caused a large tree branch to fall on a group of women walking their children in Riverside Park.
Grand Rapids, Mi- With winds gusting between 40 and 50 mph, a large branch fell from a silver maple tree in Riverside Park, landing a group of walkers. Two women, and a young child were taken to local hospitals by ambulance with non-life threatening injuries.
West Michigan Tree Services was in the park working with a Swedish TV crew that was filming a Swedish version of “The Dirtiest Job” and was about to do a climbing segment in an ash tree when they heard the crash and shouting.
“We were standing here talking about what we were going to do today when we heard this crash,” Swedish reality TV personality Carina Berg said. “We looked over and it was a group of pregnant women and little children walking away.”
The branch had fallen on the walking path just north of boat launch #2 in Riverside Park just after 10 a.m.
“We all ran down there (film crew, Arborists, everyone). We found a woman still under the tree,” said Brian Rathbun, an Arborist with West Michigan Tree. “We cut what we needed to, to get her out and to do a triage assessment and hold her steady until the EMS got here.”
“When we got there all we could see was a woman underneath the tree with a baby shoe next to her,” Rathbun said. “The woman managed to protect her young child enough that they were able to pull the child out before we made it to them”.
The branch, roughly twenty-four inches in diameter broke off from the tree, crashing down on the woman and child. Rathbun estimated the weight of the limb to be between 1,000-2,000 pounds. “If it had been a few seconds earlier, where the group was walking, it would have likely resulted in a fatal accident” said Rathbun.
Grand Rapids City Forestry is responsible for assessing the condition of trees in city parks.
A Women is rolled to a waiting ambulance after a large tree branch falls on her while walking in Riverside Park.
Media Works of John Rothwell 