Tree topples as pedestrians pass

Three people escaped injury March 1 when a large tree fell on 59th Street near 20th Avenue.

Ben Kerstein, his wife Shelly and another family member were walking past the tree when it crashed to the sidewalk at around 4 p.m. A security camera recorded their short run to safety.

“It was an older tree,” Kerstein told ABC 7 Eyewitness News. “It was super dead, but enough that if it had landed on us, we would’ve been dead. There was no other way, God saved us. We had to celebrate, you know.”

A Parks Department spokesperson told this paper that the tree stood on private property. PIX 11 said the property owner declined to comment.