Witness describes crazy moments as he watched tree fall onto car driving along I-285

DUNWOODY, Ga. — Insane. That’s how a metro Atlanta man describes the scene Thursday on I-285 in Dunwoody when a large tree crashed onto a car just few lanes over from him.

“I noticed that truck in front of me started to come into my lane a little,” witness Paul Kim told Channel 2’s Mike Petchenik. “I saw something happening to the side where a tree was exploding.

Kim was driving to work in Chamblee on I-285 near Ashford-Dunwoody Road when the built-in dash camera on his Tesla captured the incident on video. Kim later shared that video with police, and thousands of people have viewed it.

[VIDEO: Here’s the moment a tree fell on a car driving down I-285]

Dunwoody Police say the tree injured the driver of the other car, sending him to the hospital with lacerations to his head.

“I felt incredibly bad for the driver of that car because you can’t ever expect something like that to happen,” Kim told Petchenik.

Dunwoody Police say Kim and the other witnesses did the right thing by continuing to drive, instead of stopping to help. They said many called 911 to report it.

TRENDING STORIES:

• Parts of north Georgia could see 2+ inches of snow Saturday
• Heads up! Major road will be shut down entire weekend
• VIDEO: Deer frolics in puddle after storms move through Georgia

“Their reactions were very quick,” said Sgt. Robert Parsons. “Obviously they were able to get out of the way. Thankfully we didn’t have any secondary collisions.”

Parsons said the incident highlights that anything can happen at any time on the roads.

“It’s definitely something to think about. When you have these storms and you’re on the highway, there are trees along the highway, you need to pay attention,” he said.

Georgia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Natalie Dale told Petchenik the tree was on private property, not in GDOT’s right of way. Still, she said the department has an extensive “right of way reclamation” program in place to cut back trees and vegetation along the sides of Georgia state routes and interstates.

“We did get some pushback and a lot of raised eyebrows about why we were clearing trees, why we were cutting back trees on our right of way,” she told Petchenik. “Aesthetics are really secondary to human life, to safety.”

Dale conceded that construction projects near the highway could lead to more runoff and ponding of water, which could contribute to softer ground. But, she said that’s why the reclamation program is so important.

“Pushing trees back from our right of way so that we have a safer system, so that not only are cars not running off the road into trees, but those trees in inclement weather situations are not falling on vehicles,” she said.

VIDEO: Here's the moment a tree fell on a car driving down I-285 The Dunwoody Police Department tweeted video of the moment the tree came crashing down.

© 2020 Cox Media Group