A New Jersey woman was hit by a falling tree a day after the nor’easter struck the tri-state -- but she survived thanks to residents who banded together to save her.
The woman was walking her dog near Woodland Avenue and Heights Road in Ridgewood when the giant tree toppled onto her Saturday morning.
“I heard someone screaming,” Kathy Skrzypczak said.
Luckily, it wasn’t the trunk of the tree that hit the woman, but one of its branches.
“I could see that her leg was pinned by her calf,” Skrzypczak said. “She was still awake, she was in pain.”
Firefighters and police raced to free the woman and rushed her by stretcher to a nearby hospital. She was recovering Saturday evening and is expected to survive. It's unclear if her dog was injured.
The close call has neighbors worried about their own safety.
“Every time there’s a storm or wind or a lot of snow we’re always looking at all the trees around here,” Skrzypczak said.
Friday’s storm toppled hundreds of trees across the region and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were still in the dark Saturday.
It was also blamed on at least two deaths in the tri-state; an 11-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell onto his Hudson Valley home, and a 41-year-old man died in New Jersey when he was electrocuted by downed power lines Friday evening.
