What do widowmakers have to do with this incident? The whole tree fell on him, not just a branch.
“They don’t call them widowmakers for nothing.”
Similar thing even happens in the desert. After a good soak in rain you do not want to be out hiking where there are a lot of Cholla cactus above you and have the wind kick up. It will rain Cholla limbs on you. And they bounce around like superballs. Not lethal, but it can be very seriously incapacitating.