Teen’s Car Struck by Pecan Tree During Severe Weather
DYER, Tenn. — A local teen survived a freak accident during Thursday night’s severe weather when a pecan tree feel on her car while she was driving. Large limbs marked the scene of a crash that firefighters say was dangerously close from being deadly. “You could barely see the car buried in among the limbs,” Dyer Fire Chief Roger Worrell said. The Dyer teen was driving down Currie Road during Halloween night’s round of severe weather, when a pecan tree crashed down on her car. “My daughter, she called us and told us she’d just hit a tree,” Bobby Carlton said, the victim’s father. “We didn’t realize how bad it was until we got there.” Limbs crushed the front of the car, blocked the road and took down power lines. Rescuers rushed to the scene to help. Bobby Carlton says it’s surprising his daughter walked away with only minor injuries. “She got a bump on the head, but the Lord was with her,” Carlton said. “We’re just so thankful she didn’t get hurt no worse than she did.” “In this instance, we’re lucky the tree fell as it did and missed the cab of the car,” Chief Worrell said. “If it’d fallen another couple of feet one way or the other, it could’ve crushed the cab of the car.” Mr. Carlton says in the end, he’s just happy his daughter was OK. But he hopes that this incident can serve as a safety reminder for other drivers. “I used to work with a man who had a tree, ran into one like this at night and it killed him,” Carlton said. “And so that’s why I tell my kids when it’s storming that you drive slower and you keep an eye on the lookout because you never know where it’s coming from.” The road was blocked for nearly three hours while crews cleared the tree. The national weather service says there were several reports of trees down in Dyer and Gibson counties. No one was seriously hurt in Thursday night’s storms.
