8 children hurt when 75 foot tree falls at California summer camp

The 75-foot-tall, 75-year-old pine crashed without warning at around 5 p.m. just outside the Kidspace Children’s Museum, city fire spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

In this image released by Pasadena Fire, Pasadena firefighters and police work to remove a tree that fell near Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday, July 28, 2015.

Officials say a young girl’s condition has been upgraded from critical to guarded, while a young boy remains in critical condition a day after a huge pine tree fell on them outside a Southern California children’s museum.

Shanklin said the tree was in a nearby park and not on the museum’s property.

Greg Prodigalidad, who witnessed the accident and rushed to help rescue the children, told KABC-TV, “I heard a tree crack, and then I turned around, and I saw little kids running, then I saw the tree fall on top of the little kids, maybe about five or seven of them”.

Parents, camp counselors and museum staff, even kitchen workers, scooped the children from under the toppled tree. “Some parents had been there to pick up their children, others were on the way”.

The injured children were 6 to 8 years old, as reported by the Pasadena Fire Department.

“Our public spaces, especially the Arroyo, are unique and draw thousands of visitors each day, so it is a priority for the city to maintain both the beauty and safety of our parks and open spaces for all to enjoy”, Tornek said. They were crying and shaken up but escaped injury, she told KABC-TV. “Apparently they were doing arts and crafts directly under the tree when it fell on them”.

“I myself saw two children carried out on stretchers and they were pretty bloody”. That brought tears to my eyes, ” she said. The staff of the water park made sure that all 33 campers were accounted for, as indicated by camp officials.

California is enduring a severe drought, causing residents to scale back dramatically on water use. But it wasn’t immediately known if that could have played any role.

“We don’t have anything concrete yet as to the cause”, said William Boyer, the city’s spokesman.