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Massive Tree Falls On Woman, 4 Men Unable To Lift It

GLENDALE (CBSLA) -- A massive tree fell on a woman walking in Glendale Sunday -- the tree was so large four men were unable to lift it off her.

CBS2's Greg Mills spoke to two witnesses, a mother and daughter.

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The woman was stuck for about a half hour until rescue crews could pull her out.

"You heard this crack and I saw the woman step back walk back just enough and cover her head and the tree was on her," said Melissa Walch, a witness.

The tree did heavy damage to a car.

The tree crashed down on her legs. Walch did not recognize the woman.

She was taking a Sunday stroll around a cul-de-sac on El Lado Drive.

"She just kept screaming get it off me, get it off me," Walch said.

They couldn't move it. The Walch family and their neighbors tried.

"We had four men and a jack trying to lift it off of her and there was no way. Which, in hindsight, was probably a good thing. The weight of the tree was most likely acting like a tourniquet." Walch said.

She said the woman had compound fractures and her right leg looked worse than the left.

From the crack of the tree until the time the EMT's were able to pull her out from under, was about 30 minutes Walch estimated.

Firefighters used inflatable devices to lift the massive tree.

Walch was with her kids -- who were walking their dogs -- when the tree came down. Walch said her kids were close -- about 15 feet away.

"We heard the crack. You could see the lady just trying to cover her head and she just disappeared," said Emma Walch.

She said one of their dogs darted into the street when they came out. Delaying them, they otherwise might have been right under the tree when it crashed down.

"Yes, we consider ourselves very lucky and thankful," Emma said.

Mom says they have pleaded with the city to cut the leaning oaks down -- she was worried something like this could happen.

"I'm incredibly worried about my children,," Walch said, "We've lost one child already and we are not losing another. I'm not."

Walch told Mills the family lost a daughter to SIDS.

KCAL9's Jeff Nguyen said the victim was in her 70s.

Spencer Walch, father of Emma, husband of Melissa, tried to pull the tree off the woman with three other neighbors.

"She started to scream to stop because it was causing the weight to shift. It was causing her some pain," said Spencer.

The victim was reportedly taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

The woman's injuries are not life-threatening but Nguyen says bother her legs and her left arm were broken. She also had some serious cuts and scrapes.

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