Tree Falls During Storm, Near Miss for Nanuet Woman

BY SARA GILBERT

On Wednesday, August 1, Anita Rossi was on the phone with her pastor’s wife around 2 p.m. when a severe thunderstorm hit, sending a large tree crashing down onto her second floor apartment in the Normandy Village complex in Nanuet.

She wasn’t badly injured, but was definitely hit by the tree and in shock, said her neighbors. She was taken to Nyack Hospital immediately. The tree came down on the building at an angle that crushed her porch and sliding doors. She had been standing right by the sliding doors on the phone when the tree fell.

“She jumped out of the way just in time” to not be seriously injured, said Will Reinmuth, her pastor, who raced over as soon as he heard what happened and plans to go visit her at the hospital as soon as the tree is completely removed from her apartment.

Police and ambulance came immediately, said Reinmuth.

Debbie Patterson, Rossi’s downstairs neighbor, was there too but thankfully her apartment is intact.

“It all started with this large crack,” Patterson said. “It did a lot of damage.”

Another neighbor, from the adjacent building, Janis Martin, said she was looking out her window and saw it happen.

“The tree went right through the window and the limb hit her head,” said Martin, who is a nurse. She said Rossi is going to be okay, “but she’s in shock right now.”

After the ambulance took Rossi to the hospital, a crew worked all afternoon cutting and clearing the tree, while neighbors watched in the drizzling rain from a safe distance.

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