DES MOINES (WHO-TV) - She was at the wrong place at the wrong time. A family outing on the bike trail over the weekend ended with a trip to the emergency room. A woman was knocked off her bike when a tree came crashing down on the Greenbelt trail.
“I heard cracking. It sounded kind of thunder and I knew something bad was about to happen, but I never dreamt it was going to hit me,” says Betty Underwood.
A 30 foot tree branch snapped off and landed right on her handle bars. The limb crushed her bike and sent her flying. Underwood`s 13 year old daughter witnessed the whole thing.
“I totally saw it in slow motion coming down on her,” says Asia Underwood.
“They were telling me please get up, please get up and I couldn`t because I had the wind knocked out of me so I really couldn`t talk,” says Betty Underwood.
When she saw how upset her kids were, the adrenaline kicked in, but it didn’t take long before she felt the pain. Underwood walked away with bumps and bruises from head to toe.
“I broke two bones in my wrist and I broke this pinky,” she says.
While the chances of a falling branch hitting someone are slim, Travis Underwood says what happened to his wife is proof that it does happen.
“People don`t really think about it when they`re riding through you know until they hear a crack. It can be too late. It was almost too late for Betty,” he says.
He hopes trail users listen and occasionally look up for their own safety.
“Somebody was watching out for her and you know, she`s a tough lady,” says Travis Underwood.
The city of Clive says the Parks Department is out every day inspecting the trail. It takes about a month to check the full length. Officials say they will look at the area where Underwood was hit.