(OCCIDENTAL, Calif.) — A 2-and-a-half-year-old boy has died after a redwood tree fell on a double-wide mobile home on Wednesday evening in California as a massive storm pummeled the state, authorities say.
The incident occurred in Occidental, California — approximately 70 miles northwest of San Francisco in Sonoma County — on Wednesday evening as hurricane-force winds battered parts of California as part of the bomb-cyclone that has also brought heavy rains and flooding, according to Ron Lunardi, the fire chief in Occidental.
“One of our major incidents we’ve had involved a redwood tree falling on a house … and we had a fatality up there of a minor — infant, actually. A one-to-two-year old infant,” Lunardi said in an interview.
The child was home with his mother and his father when the accident happened, Lunardi said.
“When I first arrived on scene, a frantic father came out of the house holding the child. He was kind of covered in debris and he said my child is not breathing,” Lunardi said. “We are in a rural location out here so my first thought was get him into my truck and let’s get him out to the main road because he is on a long dirt driveway. I got the father into the truck. As I was backing up down the driveway in reverse I was giving him instructions to breathe his child for him and as we did we got back out to the main road where I met the rescue squad and they immediately grabbed the child from the father and started CPR and waited for the paramedics to get there.”
Neither the mother nor the father of the child were injured when the tree fell but the young boy succumbed to the injuries he suffered in the accident.
“Any time you have a situation like this, especially with a child, everybody’s emotions are a lot higher,” Lunardi said.
Damaging winds gusts of at least 50 mph were forecast Wednesday night and gusts of up to 70 mph are possible near Northern California’s coast, according to the National Weather Service. Flooding rain, damaging winds and mudslides will also be possible across the state over the next several days.
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