Falling tree traps woman, tot in car Torn wires halt traffic, cause outage

BANGOR – An area mom-to-be, who was driving along Parkview Avenue on Saturday afternoon, thought she had narrowly escaped danger when she slammed on her car brakes and watched a large deciduous tree crash into the road in front of her.

Within seconds, though, the tree ripped power lines from local homes, snapped two utility poles, one on either side of her green Volvo, and draped live wires over the top of her car, as some dangled through her open sunroof.

Katie Spearing, 28, is nine months pregnant and due to give birth on June 5, but on Saturday afternoon she was forced to sit in her car for more than an hour in the near 80 degree heat, waiting for the power to be cut so she could safely escape her vehicle.

“I heard a huge crack but didn’t realize the power lines were coming down until I stopped the car and heard a big thud on my roof,” Spearing said, cradling her 2-year-old niece, Madison Coolbrith, who had been asleep in the back seat for most of the event. “I wanted to get out and kind of panicked at first.”

Spearing’s eyes grew wide as she revealed her greatest fear during the entire ordeal.

“I kept thinking, please don’t go into labor right now,” she said, as she met the gaze of other mothers gathered at nearby Chapin Park to witness the spectacle. Her candid response prompted a sympathetic chuckle from the group, who watched their own children pluck souvenir leaves and twigs from the fallen tree.

The large tree marked the corner of Chapin Park where Parkview Avenue intersects with Coombs Street. People in the area at the time said the tree just fell, which surprised them, since there was only a slight breeze on the sunny, spring day.

Local residents said that over the years the tree had begun to rot and bugs always were crawling on its trunk.

“This place [the park] was packed with kids, dogs and people running, all day,” said Monica Collins, a resident of Parkview Avenue. “This park is very active; I’m shocked the tree didn’t hit somebody when it came down.”

The tree immediately halted traffic coming from either direction on Parkview Avenue, as it spanned the entire roadway and nearly missed a basketball hoop set up at the edge of a driveway across the street.

“Two to three boys are always playing basketball across the street,” said Deborah Colageo. “The tree fell right toward it.”

Spearing said she was driving home after picking up her niece, when the incident occurred. Little Madison did get a little antsy toward the end of the wait, Spearing said, but once free from the car, the sleepy-eyed youngster contentedly sucked her pacifier while nestled in her aunt’s arms.

Nick Robinson, a family friend, watched with concern as the minutes Spearing and the child spent in the car turned into hours.

“It had been at least an hour to an hour and a half,” said Robinson, 23. “I had begun devising a plan to drop in some water and food.”

Bangor Police and Fire departments were alerted to the situation just before 5 p.m. and numerous crews blocked off the roadway to through traffic. When the power was cut, about 32 residents on Parkview Avenue and Maple Street lost electricity. All power had been restored by Sunday morning, according to Susan Faloon, spokeswoman for Bangor Hydro-Electric Co.

Employees from the city of Bangor arrived at the park around 6:30 p.m. and used a front-end loader to pull the tree from the road into the park. Crews then began to cut the limbs off the tree and move debris from the road.

A long, narrow piece of the tree had broken off, and Jason Wagner, 16, decided he could make it into a great skateboard.

“I’ve hung out around this tree for many years,” said Wagner, who later sat on the tree’s trunk as crews sawed its limbs.

“I want to keep a piece of it.”