DeKalb County authorities are investigating the possible storm-related death of a postal worker on Saturday.
DeCarlo Allen, 36, was killed when part of a dead tree fell on his mail truck as he was delivering mail in the 6000 block of Shadow Rock Drive at the Mystery Valley Golf Club in Lithonia around 12:30 p.m. The tree crushed the roof of the truck right above where Allen was sitting.
DeKalb County fire Capt. Eric Jackson said Allen’s vehicle careened off the road, down a short hillside and into another tree. The impact from the falling tree likely caused the postal worker’s death, Jackson said. Wind likely contributed to knocking the tree down, Jackson said, but the snow and ice that blanketed metro Atlanta earlier in the day were not immediately believed to be factors.
“It was really a freak accident,” Jackson said.
Allen, a DeKalb native, was described as a happy-go-lucky family man who was devoted to his wife and two young children.
“It’s hard. There’s no one to blame,” his uncle Nicholas Allen told Channel 2 Action News. “It really threw us for a loop. We don’t understand it. But we’re going to deal with it.”
