By Robert Mills
The Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
CONCORD, Mass. — It took four chain saws working in the midst of a vicious storm, but a 43-year-old woman who was trapped when an 80-foot pine tree crushed her car on Elm Street yesterday managed to escape with her life.
“She was extremely lucky,” said Concord Fire Capt. Kenneth O’Donnell, who helped oversee the rescue effort.
O’Donnell said firefighters were sent to the 300 block of Elm Street (Route 2A) about 5:20 p.m., and found the woman trapped in a “flattened” car that had been crushed by a nearly 80-foot tree that had been struck by lightning.
The tree was 3-feet thick at its trunk and had fallen on the woman’s car as she drove west on Route 2A, O’Donnell said.
As a line of thunderstorms that prompted reports of three-quarter-inch hail raged overhead, firefighters spoke to the still-conscious woman and worked to free her from the car.
“We had four chain saws going all at once, all the while tending to her the best we could with the access we had to her,” O’Donnell said. “She was really encapsulated in the car, but she was still able to talk to us.”
Because the woman was trapped in the car, firefighters could not use heavy machinery that the Department of Public Works later used to open the roadway.
With the tree removed, firefighters still had to use hydraulic tools to cut the roof off the car before the woman was freed about 25 minutes later, O’Donnell said.
She was taken to Emerson Hospital with what appeared to be injuries that were not life-threatening. O’Donnell declined to identify the woman, citing medical-privacy laws.
Route 2A was closed for about an hour. O’Donnell said the rescue was great teamwork by firefighters, the DPW, and police. Bedford and Lincoln firefighters helped at the scene.
The same line of storms prompted spotters in Hudson and Pelham, N.H., as well as Acton, to report three-quarter inch hail to the National Weather Service in Taunton.
Another lightning strike sparked a shed fire in Pelham that nearly burned a house on the end of Jeremy Hill Road, just 20 minutes earlier.
Firefighters responded a little before 5 p.m., as the storms moved southeast across the region, and found a shed fully involved and flames quickly extending to the deck of a nearby home, according to a statement from Pelham firefighters.
Firefighters managed to stop that blaze even as windows cracked and siding melted on the home due to the heat of the blaze.
The storm also downed trees around the region, blocking several roads, but causing no other reported injuries.
A spokesman for National Grid reported no major outages in the region last night.
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