LOCAL : Falling Branch Kills Girl, 4
A 4-year-old girl waiting for her brother on a Highland Park school playground was struck and fatally injured by a falling eucalyptus tree branch, police said today.
The child, Carmen Munguia, was waiting outside Buchanan Street School about 2:40 p.m. Wednesday with her mother to pick up Carmen’s brother, a student, detective Ron Whitt said.
Whitt said a large limb broke off a eucalyptus tree on the playground and fell, striking Carmen on the head. “They rushed her right into the school nurse, then they called the ambulance, but she was unconscious from the time it happened,” he said. She was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena and placed on life support until arrangements could be made to donate her organs.
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