Adult, child critically injured when tree limb falls on Highway 120 in Yosemite

An adult and a child suffered major injuries Sunday afternoon when a large tree limb crushed their car on Big Oak Flat Road/Highway 120 in Yosemite National Park.

A car carrying a man, a woman and two children pulled off the road between the Crane Flat Campground and a tunnel because large branches blocked the route, Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said Tuesday morning.

While the car was on the side of the road, another tree limb fell, crushing it. An adult and a child, both in critical condition, were airlifted to a hospital, Gediman said. The other adult and other child were not injured. The incident occurred about 5 p.m.

Gediman did not have information on whether any or all of the four occupants had gotten out of the vehicle before the limb fell. Names, ages and places of residence were not available.

Traffic on Big Oak Flat Road was blocked about three hours by the incident. San Francisco resident Jean-Pierre Guittard, who was stuck in the tunnel, walked out and saw the aftermath.

The limb was dead and so large that Guittard believed it to be a tree. He described the car as “completely crushed” and said the occupants appeared to be a mother and father with a son and daughter about age 10 or 11. The two injured, he said, were the mother and son.

Gediman said no other vehicles were involved. “We were able to close the road yesterday and went in and cleared out a lot of trees,” he said Tuesday.

This story was originally published September 5, 2017 at 11:28 AM with the headline "Adult, child critically injured when tree limb falls on Highway 120 in Yosemite."