5-Year-Old Boy Killed, Mother Rescued After Falling Tree Nearly Splits Their Home In Half

A 5-year-old boy lost his life Monday morning after a tree crashed through the roof of his home in Atlanta. Officials said the tree nearly split the house in two.

The child, identified as Zachary, was trapped underneath after the tree fell on top of the house on Glenwood Road, CBS46 reported. DeKalb County Fire and Rescue crews heard a woman's voice under the rubble. They pulled out the woman, who was the boy's mother. She was uninjured. However, the boy was found dead inside.

"When they arrived they heard a person screaming; they were able to rescue a mother virtually unharmed," Capt. Jaeson Daniels, head of DeKalb County fire department, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "She complained of no injuries, but the child was deceased."

Daniels said the recovery efforts were difficult because the tree had crashed through the middle of the house. The officers had to make sure the structure was secure before retrieving the child's body.

"There is so much destruction," Daniels added. "It really just split the house in half."

Fire department officers believe strong winds and heavy rainfall in the area have caused the tree to fall through the roof, Channel 2 Action News reported.

"All the rain that we've been having, the ground has been really soft," Daniels said.

Neighbors said some of the massive trees in the area were more than 65 years old.

"These trees are so old because these houses are old," said Mary Smith, a neighbor.

Avery Cooks, an arborist who was part of the team that removed the tree from Zachary's home, believes nothing could have been done to prevent the incident.

"There were no rotten spots or dead spots in the tree so it was just an act of God and there's nothing that we could have done to prevent it," Cooks said.

While such incidents may not be completely preventable, Cooks suggested some ways to reduce the risk of falling trees.

"Take a good survey around your yard and make sure that if you have any trees that are towering over your home or leaning toward your home you have to tend to them because eventually, they will come down," Cooks said.