A man was rescued from a Buckhead home after a tree ripped through the roof Monday morning and sent his bed crashing through the floor to the garage below.
The man was pinned between the tree and the floor of the garage when Atlanta fire crews responded to the home on Old Ivy Road off Habersham Road just before 7 a.m. It took one hour for firefighters to cut away the debris, secure destabilized walls and finally hoist the tree off the man to free him, fire department spokeswoman Alyssa Richardson said.
The 47-year-old man’s family was renting the garage apartment while their home was being renovated, Richardson said. He was asleep when the tree fell across the front of the home, ripping off the entire front exterior wall.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JOHN.SPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JOHN.SPINK@AJC.COM
“He was the only one in the bedroom and the only one hurt,” Richardson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “(A woman) and a 6-month-old infant typically sleeps in the same room. That day they didn’t sleep in the room with him because the baby was a little fussy.”
The woman and the baby were unharmed and were able to get out on their own. The man was pinned to his bed by the fallen branches and only had about 30 inches of space to move when crews first arrived, according to Richardson.
The crews were able to provide some relief by cutting away the bed frame first, she said. His legs were still trapped by the tree, which made the extrication process more difficult. Crews had to stabilize the crumbling walls before they could begin cutting at the tree limbs and then used a hydraulic tool to rescue him.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JOHN.SPINK@AJC.COM
Credit: JOHN SPINK / JOHN.SPINK@AJC.COM
He was alert when fire crews turned him over to paramedics shortly after 8 a.m., and he was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. The extent of his injuries was unknown, Richardson said.
It was not clear what caused the tree to fall, but wind gusts were recorded up to 30 mph at the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport just before 7 a.m. Monday.
The previous day, a winter storm blanketed parts of metro Atlanta with a dusting of snow and ice, and some neighborhoods recorded up to 2 inches of accumulation, according to the National Weather Service. In northeast Georgia, snowfall totals were closer to 8 inches.
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