St. Petersburg woman injured after large branch falls on her, police say

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - St. Petersburg police officers had to rescue a woman after a large branch fell on top of her on Saturday morning.

Officials say at 6 a.m. a large branch from an oak tree broke and fell, hitting two houses. A woman came outside to check on it and a second larger branch fell on her, according to authorities.

Officers say they were able to extract her from the tree and St. Pete Fire Rescue took her to the hospital. She had non-life threatening injuries to her legs, according to SPPD.

For hours, St. Pete police shut down a portion of 15th Ave South near 30th Street South to clear the broken limbs.

Kayode Reid, licensed tree trimmer and owner of Hard Kor Tree Services said the tree was a laurel oak.

"We have old trees in St. Pete. It’s not like we just developed the neighborhood a couple of years ago, these trees have been around a long time," he said. "Once you have mature trees that are old, you need to constantly check on them, call a tree company or arborist to assist you."

The laurel oak was estimated to be about 60 years old.

"Laurel Oaks have a lifespan of about 50 to 70 years old," explained Reid.

He said the oak appeared to have some rotting that caused a cavity.

"A cavity is a wound. Like a limb had broken off or a trimmer had made a bad cut awhile back, it wouldn’t be able to heal itself," he said.

Licensed arborist and owner of Stafford Tree Service and Stump Grinding, Kelly Stafford strongly recommends homeowners to hire a licensed tree service or arborist to take stock of the tree around their property every two years or so.

"Make sure the person you have looking at them is qualified; making sure that they’re not only licensed but insured, and they carry workers comp on their guys," shared Stafford.

Reid also recommends hiring a professional tree trimmer before it's too late.

"Trees don’t have a mechanism to say, ‘Hey stop growing. I’m too heavy,’ so they’re going to just grow. If you don’t have someone to come out and take weight off the limbs, it will just break on its own. It doesn’t have to take a storm," he explained. "Trees are cool, and we need them but at the same time, we need to maintain them so that we can be safe."

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