By Mary O’KEEFE

On Sunday afternoon Glendale Fire Dept. responded to a call concerning a tree that fell and struck a woman who was walking in the 3900 block of El Lado Drive in the Glenwood Oaks section of Glendale.

It was a little after noon when Melissa Walsh and her family returned to her home from church.

“I had seen the woman [victim] walk on the opposite side of the street heading toward the cul-de-sac,” Walsh said.

Walsh said she had never seen the elderly woman before but their neighborhood is near Crescenta Valley Park and is a popular walking area. She waved at the woman and then turned her attention to her children who had gone into their home to get their dogs.

“The dogs ran into the street, which they never do,” Walsh said.

The dogs running into the street drew the attention of her children for a few minutes – time that didn’t seem very important then but shortly would mean everything to Walsh.

Once the children caught up to the dogs, they started walking them toward the cul-de-sac along the same path as the woman when they heard a loud noise.

“I heard this pop. It was a loud sound, and I looked over to where the kids were,” Walsh said.

The woman she had seen was just a few feet from Walsh’s son, and her daughter was a little behind him. The woman also appeared to hear the crack that came from a large oak tree and had just enough time to take a couple of steps back. She covered her head with her hands and the tree fell, Walsh said.

“It was so fast, probably a couple of seconds between the pop and when it went down. I looked in that direction and she didn’t have much time to react,” she added. “[The tree] caught her right across her thighs but, if she hadn’t moved back those two steps, she would have been underneath the tree,” she said.

At that point, Walsh, her children and other neighbors who had come out to the street went into emergency response. The woman began to scream as she was trapped under the large limb. Walsh called for someone to call 911. She kept asking the woman her name but she didn’t answer.

“She just kept screaming to get the [tree] off of her,” Walsh said.

The falling tree had also swallowed another tree in the area as it fell. Walsh said if they had not seen the whole event play out they may not have seen the woman at all.

Walsh’s husband grabbed a pillow and some water, anything to make the woman comfortable, while they waited for Glendale paramedics.

“They tried to use a jack to move the tree [off of her] but it didn’t work,” Walsh said. Other attempts at freeing the woman included several neighbors trying to lift it off of her, but nothing worked. Walsh said in hindsight that was probably a good thing because the limb may have acted as a tourniquet.

GFD Engines 29 and 28 arrived and worked to free the woman. They stabilized her and transported her to Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Since the incident, Walsh said her children are having a difficult time getting over what they witnessed. They are concerned for the woman and worried that another tree may come down.

“The City [of Glendale] has determined the tree is in Glendale Open Space. The City will consult with an arborist,” said Tom Lorenz, spokesman for the City.

As of press time the city was not certain why the tree fell.

The tree that fell, as well as other trees in the area, is a concern for Walsh and her neighbors, she said.

“We have over 36 oak trees [on our property], half are leaning and we aren’t allowed to do anything about it,” she said.

Walsh added that she heard from some pedestrians that they don’t walk on her side of the street for fear of the trees. She said she and her husband have been in touch with the city and an arborist to find out what they can do but, because of the Indigenous Tree Ordinance, there are restrictions.

“We love the trees,” she said. “But it is frustrating.”

  Mary Okeefe, Rachelle MILLER