Zilker tree limb crushes man

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The City of Austin's Official Forester said it was a 'one in a million' chance that a tree limb fell and crushed a Temple Man Saturday night in Zilker Park. David Saverse, 29, has been upgraded from critical to fair condition at UMC Brackenridge hospital after the accident. Nicole Saverse said her husband was walking across the parking lot to use the bathrooms at the Barton Springs Pool when the limb came crashing down.

The Saverse family was visiting from Temple Saturday to watch the Beauty and the Beast production at the Zilker Hillside Theater. Saverse said she was sitting with her children at the amphitheater when the large pecan tree limb broke and crashed down on David Saverse and eight surrounding cars.

"I was just standing there by the concession stand, and it sounded like a crackling of thunder, and I looked over and actually caught the branch breaking off and falling," said John Cherico, an Austin resident who witnessed the accident. "Somebody was on the ground and hurt pretty badly."

Saverse was transported to Brackenridge Hospital, and the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department's Forestry Division is looking into what went wrong. The Forestry Division's arborists check about 9,000 trees in the city on a regular basis removing any that pose any type of threat.

"We had no way of knowing that that was going to happen," said Walter Passmore, the City of Austin's Forester.

Passmore said city workers inspected the exact tree that failed after the May 15th storms hit Austin hard.

He said the tree was deemed safe. "This tree was not one that was identified to have any defects that needed to be treated," said Passmore. After the failure, the city inspected the tree again, and said the weight of the leaves and nuts combined with the growth pattern to create a freak accident.

"It's like the occurrence of being struck by lightning, there's nothing that you can really do to keep yourself safe from that one in a million incident," said Passmore. Underneath the tree in question Monday, day campers played near the orange cones that outlined an area of concern for the city.

"I'm not concerned about them being over here, we've been over here for a long time," said Austin Science and Nature Day Camp Counselor Sean McNally. Just an hour and a half later, Austin News observed a park worker removing picnic benches from underneath the trees in question.

A spokesman said the worker removed the benches because the manager that oversees Zilker Park did not want families to feel afraid to sit under the tree.