A mother of three from Kennesaw, Georgia, nearly died—after a tree branch fell on her during a storm last week.
Jennifer Lane was outside enjoying the snow with her family in Legacy Park, Kennesaw, on Friday, Dec. 8 when suddenly a tree branch snapped.
The branch, heavier than normal with snow atop it—paralyzed her from the waist down, according to CBS46.
Lane suffered a severe spinal cord injury from the branch’s impact that caused the paralysis, according to a GoFundMe page created for the family.
She remains in hospital with two punctured lungs and severe nerve damage.
At the time of the incident, worried neighbors ran outside to help the mother. But due to the dangerous travel conditions, it took nearly 50 minutes for ambulances to arrive.
One neighbor, Esteban Alarcon, who witnessed the events, placed Lane on a cornhole board as they tried to keep her conscious.
“When I saw her laying there, I thought maybe she just hit her head,” Alarcon told CBS46. “As I started processing it, I realized, this is bad. The EMT checked her vitals and said that she was squeezing his hands but it got worse by the minute.”
Officer Scott Luther from the Kennesaw Police Department said the family was taking a picture of the snow when the branch fell. He said the branch first hit a bridge rail before falling on the mother.
“If the rail wasn’t there, it may have hurt her even worse or killed her,” Luther told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Alarcon said the mother was slipping into shock, as she kept repeating the same questions.
She kept saying ‘Is anybody coming? What happened to me? I’m having trouble breathing and I can’t feel my legs,” Alarcon told CBS46.
The GoFundMe page, created to help with the family’s medical bills have raised $22,633 out of the $50,000 goal, as of writing on Tuesday, Dec. 12.
The Kennesaw Police department issued a warning days ago for residents to use “extreme caution” as the winter weather worsens.
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