Storm-felled tree leaves Mesa woman, 75, hurt and homeless
The 150-foot-tall tree came crashing through the roof and landed on top of Sims, who is pretty much bedridden after a stroke in 2009 left her with aphasia and paralyzed her right side.
"My older brother and my niece and nephew were home," said
"My nephew Zach jumped on the bed and tried to lift up the tree. They went into crisis mode and realized it was the whole tree that came down and not just the branches."
Oso's older brother,
Monday's dust and rain storm was the first major monsoon of the season to hit
The downpour ended a 119-day dry spell, according to readings by the
The storm snapped power lines, left more than 36,000 SRP customers in
Besides Sim's rescue, which took half of the department's technical rescue resources, firefighters also rescued a 71-year-old woman trapped in her vehicle that became submerged in a canal, Smith said.
In that case, a woman accidentally drove her car into a canal near
The dispatcher told the woman to get out of the car, but she replied she can't swim, according to the nearly 10-minute-long 911 tape.
Although the woman ended up giving the dispatcher three different locations where she fell in,
The 71-year-old woman was able to survive through an air pocket in her car, Smith said. She was in stable condition, he said, adding he had no future information.
The tree that fell on Fray's home not only wrecked the two-bedroom, one-bath house where Sims was born and raised but also displaced five other family members who lived there as her caregivers -- son
The
From there, the family will stay at an Airbnb rental paid for by friends. But that housing stops on
"So, we got a phone call from the city of
Oso said she went to a number of agencies on her own to try and find permanent housing for her family but struck out.
The family had no homeowners' insurance and Sims' siblings, a brother and sister are both elderly and disabled; their residences are not wheelchair accessible, Oso said.
"We don't have any family able to help at this time," she said. "The unfortunate thing is my mom was the family member that everyone relied on. She's taken in cousins and family who needed help."
The family has started a GoFundme.com campaign to raise
Within two days, the fund received
The long-term goal is to fix or rebuild her mother's home.
"This house has been in the family for generations," Oso said. "Our grandparents worked very hard, they were farm workers, to buy this property and build this home. My mother was a caregiver for my grandmother and we took care of them at home. We've never put anybody in a nursing home. It's important mom is taken care of at home. It's important for her to be at home be with her family and grandkids."
In all the years the family has lived in the home and through the yearly monsoons, there were occasional roof leaks, a little flooding and lightening once struck the pine tree when she was about 14, Oso said.
"Nothing like this has ever happened," she said. "This is a really tragic accident but we don't want to give over to despair. I think we can work through this. Hopefully, we are able to pull together community efforts to get mom back to her home."
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