Posted on 07/19/2005 1:41:41 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
ZEPHYRHILLS - The lake at Zephyr Park was like glass early Monday evening as 63-year-old Nancy Booth and her two adult children sat at a picnic table beneath a great oak tree.
No rain, no wind, mostly clear.
Then, witnesses heard a horrible crack. The oak at the water's edge was splitting.
Booth's children scampered out of the way, but one of the huge falling limbs pinned their mother to bench where she sat.
Booth's daughter, Caloie, ran to a passing van yelling for help.
The driver, 39-year-old Gary Killeen, having seen the tree fall, jumped out of the van and ran toward the table.
Nancy Booth still was alive, Killeen recalled, and her son, Glenn, was trying to lift the branch. The mother looked at Killeen.
"Please help me," he recalled her saying.
Then, she closed her eyes.
Killeen and at least a dozen other bystanders rushed to the scene and tried to lift the limb.
Minutes later, Booth's son told Killeen to stop. The limb couldn't be lifted, and Nancy Booth was dead, Killeen said.
Debbie Streets, who has walked the path around the lake nearly every night for a decade, said she often saw the Booths.
Streets didn't know Booth and her children by name, she said, but they always smiled as she passed.
It was about 6:30 p.m. Monday when she had passed the Zephyrhills family, sitting around the wooden table.
"I just started hearing the tree rip apart," Streets said. "You couldn't see anyone."
The crack was so sudden, Streets said, it seemed inexplicable.
"A hurricane came and didn't knock any trees down," she said.
Zephyrhills police Chief Russell Barnes said the great oak appeared to be in "good shape."
The tree was alive and mostly green except for a dead part in the center, but that was surrounded by good bark, he said.
The limbs that fell near the table were about a foot in diameter, Barnes said.
"For as long as that tree's been there, it could have happened at any time, it could have fallen in the middle of the night," Barnes said. "For (her life) to end like this is just ridiculous."
--Times staff writer Jamal Thalji contributed to this report.
And yet we still find it odd. I guess the uncertainty is so unsettling.
I call Death "the big door" ( borrowing a reference from one of my favorite writer's titles, "Slam the Big Door." ) because it's either a door that opens into another world, or the final slam in the face that has nothing beyond it but endless night.
When I was a young man, I wanted to be fully concious while dying so I could analyze and observe each moment- but now? I'd really rather not know about it. Seen too much of it.
Ha! I know what you mean.
I think at the end (if a tree doesn't get you earlier) you're ready for a rest.
Geesh! You take them out one at a time. You start by removing onelimb at a time andthen you pull the stumps with a bulldozer, or hire a stump grinder. Eventually you'll have something our early settlers strived for -- a clearing!
For some reason my personal memories extend back to the day of my birth (and even before that). So, it's always been my goal to occupy my last few moments of life visiting memories of my first few moments.
Stop that!!! NO logic allowed:)
The tree was alive and mostly green except for a dead part in the center, but that was surrounded by good bark, he said.
I'm a Police Chief,Jim,not an arborist!
just another nice Sunday in Zephyrhills...
Here's a news flash for you Chief Barnes:
BARK DON'T HOLD UP TREE LIMBS!
Unless your insurance company will continue to support multi-trial learning, have you considered a chainsaw?
Come to think of it, I have a chainsaw with a five foot cut capacity (part of an Alaska mill). Got any large trees than need to meet Mr. Chainsaw?
I'm frightened, it's time for our politicians to protect us from these menaces. I demand that they do something now!
"Damn beaver!....."
Hey! It wasn't me OK? I don't even like poplar.
When I was working on trees we inspected all the Oaks on municipal property for rot once a year.
If the trunk was rotting we dug out the punky wood with a chainsaw, trimmed the branches back and put large bolts through the trunk.
That tree was not properly monitored and maintained.
George, George
George of the Jungle
Lives a life that's free
Watch out for that tree!
When he gets in a scrape
He makes his escape
With the help of his friend
An ape named Ape
Then away he'll schlep
On his elephant Shep
While Fella and Ursula
Stay in step...with
George, George
George of the Jungle
Friend to you and me
Watch out for that tree,
Watch out for that...tree!
...George, George
George of the Jungle
Friend to you and me!!!
LOL!!!
I wondered if someone was going to bring up that line. LOL
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