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| URL:
http://riceornot.ricecop.com/?auto=25888 |
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| Comments: 8 (Read/Post) Favorites: 0 (View) |
Submitted
on: 07-30-2003
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Category:
Vehicle Misc |
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Description:
Altima! |
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| #2 |
7-30-2003 @ 12:30:42 PM |
| Posted By : Jurrell |
Reply | Edit | Del |
#1, Wrong, probably a family that got crushed and killed by a falling tree.
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| #4 |
7-30-2003 @ 12:33:28 PM |
| Posted By : Jurrell |
Reply | Edit | Del |
Falling tree kills parents, child
18-month-old girl survives
ROBERT MOORE, JOHN FRANK & MELISSA MANWARE
MATTHEWS -- A tree fell on a car during a storm Tuesday, killing a father, mother and their older daughter in a shopping center parking lot, authorities said.
A second daughter was cut from the wreckage and flown to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. Firefighters spent 40 minutes sawing through the tree and then had to cut the crushed car apart to free the crying 18-month-old.
Matthews police said the surviving toddler, wearing a sun dress with purple flowers, suffered a fractured leg but would recover. Her grandparents live in the Charlotte area.
Police late Tuesday said Frederich Shannon English, 33, Amel I. English, 33, and their two girls were inside a four-door, white Nissan Altima about 2:40 p.m., when the white oak tree fell on it, crushing the roof to below the steering wheel. The Charlotte family was heading toward the Home Depot at the Matthews Festival Shopping Center.
Matthews Sgt. Marty Helms said the parents and elder daughter were rendered unconscious immediately, and probably died instantly. He declined to name the children but said the deceased was 3 years old.
Matthews Police Chief Rob Hunter said it was a freak accident of timing: "It's a matter of seconds one way or the other."
Police said they were still trying to determine what caused the tree to fall. But National Weather Service meteorologists said Mecklenburg County officials told them strong winds likely were to blame.
The tree fell when a storm cell pushed through the area, dumping 7/10th an inch of rain in the Matthews area just a few minutes.
Just before the tree fell, lightning struck a house and sparked a fire on Kalanchoe Drive, off Sardis Road, Charlotte fire officials said. No one was hurt.
In the shopping center parking lot, more than 20 firefighters from three departments worked in the sun and humidity left behind by the storm, cutting away the trunk and limbs with chainsaws.
It took more than an hour to remove the bodies.
The 4-foot-thick tree splintered about 15 feet up its trunk. Broken branches and limbs landed more than 40 yards from the tree but no other vehicles were struck and no one else was hurt.
"This could have been anyone going through there at that time," Helms said. "It was just a horrible tragedy."
Onlookers said the tree was already weakened from a lightning strike last week that left its trunk scarred, but Helms said police were still trying to determine whether that is true.
Jack Brucia had watched the horror through the window of his Fontanella restaurant in the shopping center, about 100 feet from where the tree fell.
He said he saw the car turn at a stop sign toward Home Depot.
"The wind was blowing so hard," he said. "It was like (Hurricane) Hugo for a few minutes."
Brucia ran through the downpour, barely able to see five feet in front of him. He said he got to the tree before anyone else, but wasn't able to get closer than 10 feet from the car.
"It was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life," he said.
Brucia said there was lightning before and after the tree fell, but he couldn't say whether it struck the tree.
Including the strike at the house near Sardis Road, Charlotte firefighters responded to at least three lightning-related fires Tuesday afternoon.
Firefighters were called to two northern Charlotte addresses -- Coates Court about 3:15 p.m. and Autumnwood Lane about 4:10 p.m. No one was injured in any of the incidents.
The afternoon's storms dumped about a half-inch of rain in Charlotte and knocked out traffic lights, downed trees in Belmont in Gaston County and flooded a Rowan County creek. Authorities rescued a woman from a house near the creek.
The storms knocked out power to 11,000 Duke Power customers, most in the Charlotte, Shelby and Winston-Salem areas.
Workers expected to have electricity restored by this morning.
The storm brought flash flooding to Masters Inn Economy on Independence Boulevard. In June, stormwater at the motel surged as high as six feet, damaging all the ground floor units and creating a sinkhole in the front parking lot.
The water didn't go as high Tuesday, but the foot-high runoff undid more than a month of cleanup efforts, front desk manager Nancy Prescott said.
In April 2001, an east Charlotte man was killed when a rotting oak tree fell on his car.
Earl Johnson, 76, died instantly when a 60-foot section of a rotting oak fell onto his Oldsmobile. Johnson had gotten into the car during a thunderstorm to move it away from the tree.
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