A transient staying beneath a “massive” hillside tree in Echo Park was trapped for nearly 30 minutes Monday when it toppled over following a night of heavy rainfall, bringing down energized electric wires and significantly damaging an adjacent duplex.
Rescuers were called just before 8 a.m. to 1332 Laveta Terrace, Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department said. The first firefighters to show up stabilized the trapped man and used a chainsaw to cut a rescue path and lessen the weight on him.
More firefighters, including those specializing in urban search-and-rescue operations, arrived to deploy a 50 ton-capable extended boom to lift the tree off the man, who “amazingly sustained only a minor injury” and declined to be taken to a hospital, according to Humphrey.
He said the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety was sent to assess damage to the duplex, where three residents were displaced — a man and woman in a unit that was red-tagged, and a man who lives in the other unit, which was yellow-tagged.
The residents declined assistance from the American Red Cross, according to the LAFD.
One of the residents, musician Vince Meghrouni, told NBC4 the tree landed with a bang atop the duplex and it crashed through parts of the roof.
“It felt like an earthquake, but no shaking,” he said.
Meghrouni told the station the tree fell across the top his living room and was visible through the room of a bedroom.
He told Channel 4 the man injured by the tree was a homeless man known in the neighborhood as George. According to Meghrouni, fire crews had a gurney ready to take the man to a hospital, but he declined treatment and walked away.