Tall tree topples, crushes car with couple inside

A Canby couple survived an over 100-foot-tall tree falling onto their car Sunday afternoon, crushing much of the passenger compartment, but the man at the wheel suffered a fractured shoulder, officials said.

At 2:45 p.m., Canby Fire was dispatched to a tree that fell on to an occupied car, located at 950 NE 34th Place.

Based on dispatch information additional resources were requested, including a ladder truck and heavy rescue from Clackamas Fire, and an additional ambulance.

When firefighters arrived, they found a large tree, about three 3 feet in diameter and over 100 foot tall, had uprooted and landed over the passenger compartment of a Hyundai Sorento, trapping the husband driver and wife passenger, officials said.

They had just pulled into their curb side parking area, and their car was still running when the tree started to fall, landing on their car faster than they could react.

The victims were both conscious and able to help firefighters extricate them from the vehicle, which was carrying the entire weight of the tree on its top.

Once extricated, the heavy rescue equipment was recalled.

The victims were both evaluated, and both transported to OHSU for evaluation. The man suffered a fractured shoulder.

The next step of the process was to coordinate removing the tree, which was on the public street, blocking the property owner from accessing their driveway.

An arborist was also called to the scene to evaluate the stability of two immediately adjacent trees. One tree will require additional assessment in daylight conditions.

Fire officials said, “There were no events that triggered this tree to fall; However, the tree’s root system appeared to have some root rot. The arborist believes it was a combination of wet and loose soil, root failure and normal area winds.”