According to authorities, a New York City woman drowned instantly after a huge tree fell into her swimming pool.
Donna Douglas, 59, lived at the River Terrace Apartments in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where the huge tree toppled into her building’s pool on Monday afternoon.
“She was dead instantly,” building resident Mike Gallo told WABC-TV. “Even if EMS was here on the spot, they couldn’t resuscitate her. She got hit in the head pretty hard.”
A 72-year-old woman was also seriously injured, but she is expected to recover, authorities said.
A neighbor stated that she saw the tree being torn.
“I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. I’m beating myself up. Maybe I should have climbed the fence or something, but there was like a 20-foot drop,”Jay Berg told WCBS-TV.
“We saw the tree in the pool, two women walking around dazed, and the woman who passed away, she was laying on a float, a raft, and her face was in the water,”Berg stated.
Douglas swam on a daily basis during her lunch break since she worked from home, her devastated domestic partner of 20 years, Gabe Gonzalez, 70,The New York Post. Douglas spent 18 years in an accounting department at a law office. Gonzalez stated that he was returning from Long Island softball when he got a call from Douglas’s office. He informed him of an accident and asked him to visit the pool.
“When I got there, I saw all the police. I went back down to the pool, and I was crushed,”Gonzalez spoke to the newspaper.
“I am heartbroken,”In the wake of Douglas’s passing, Gonzalez posted on Facebook. “I will miss this lovely bright beautiful smart woman!! Donna you’re the best thing to happen to me I’ll love you forever.”