A 44-year-old woman has died and a 49-year-old man is seriously injured after a tree fell onto a car in a rural area of Washington state.
On Saturday, Dec. 6, a Subaru Forester traveling south on Carnation-Duvall Road Northeast, just north of Fay Road Northeast, was struck by a falling tree, shattering the vehicle on impact, according to The Seattle Times and ABC affiliate KOMO.
Despite the impact, the SUV continued moving forward before coming to a stop against a guardrail. First responders arrived at approximately 2:30 p.m. local time. Rescue crews used the Jaws of Life to reach the occupants, KOMO reported.
Eastland Fire & Rescue said in a post on X that one person died as a result of the crash and that a second person was airlifted to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries.
According to the reports, the victim pronounced dead at the scene was a 44-year-old female passenger from Duvall. The driver, a 49-year-old man from Skykomish, survived the incident. Authorities have not yet released their names.
Officials said the Subaru was not the only vehicle affected by the falling tree. After it came down, a truck traveling north on the roadway struck the debris, the outlets reported.
“At least one other vehicle was up on top of a large section of a tree, which was stuck and not able to move,” Battalion Chief Seth Merritt of Eastside Fire & Rescue told KOMO of the crash, which occurred north of Carnation. The truck came to a stop blocking the northbound lane, but none of the four people inside were injured, according to the reports.
The Washington State Patrol did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities believe recent heavy rainfall likely contributed to the tree’s collapse, KOMO reported.
“What we do see is that as the ground gets saturated, the amount of moisture that we get, these trees get weakened, their root systems get weakened, and they come over,” Merritt told the outlet. “It could be with no wind.”
