‘I could not literally move:’ Woman describes moments after tree falls on home

By Justin Berger

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    TRYON, North Carolina (WLOS) — “The tree fell right through the roof and I could see sky,” Kathy Alyea said Sunday, March 10, when she shared her story with a News 13 crew during her stay at a rehabilitation facility more than three weeks after a tree fell through her Tryon home.

“I had felt or heard this kind of ‘hoo,’ this swooshing noise,” she said.

Alyea said she fought a tree and won.

It was Feb.17 around 9 a.m., and she was lying in bed.

“I just opened my eyes and I looked, and there was this giant tree up there kind of suspended, maybe six feet above me,” Alyea said.

Breathing in dust and debris, she noticed her leg pinned down by a board.

“I could not literally move,” she recalled.

Alyea, who is an amputee, has a medical guardian but couldn’t reach it.

She was able to get her phone, which she keeps under her pillow, eventually able to text with a 911 operator.

She remembers feeling a sense of calm during the estimated 15 minutes she said it took from the time she woke up to the time first responders arrived.

“What I didn’t know was the living room was also destroyed and they could not get through the house to me so they had to come in that back window,” Alyea said. “I’ve watched enough ‘ER’ and other shows to know what they were going to do. They were going to put a board under me and they’re going to try and get me out of here.” She spent the day at the emergency room in Spartanburg with just a bruise on her leg, but no other major injuries.

They wanted to discharge her that very day.

“It was the second time in my life that I felt God with me, saving me,” Alyea said.

She lost one leg following quadruple bypass surgery, and she maintains it’s her faith that kept her collected while pinned under that giant tree just weeks ago.

“I’m not asking for any more signs,” she said. “I got it, thank you God, I got it. I’m supposed to be here, no more signs please.” Regarding the tree that fell on her home, Alyea said that there were some trees around home that had to be cut down, but not the now-fallen tree was not one of them.

On Monday, March 11, Alyea will move from rehabilitation to assisted living.

Her return home, which could be months away, is not guaranteed.

“The doctors don’t want me to go back to that house,” she said.

Alyea has to climb stairs to get inside her home, which doctors say has caused too much stress on her hips.

The changes she’ll need to make to her garage — which include adding a chair lift — aren’t covered by insurance because they don’t have to do with the tree falling.

Her family has set up aGoFundMe account to help with the expenses of those necessary additions.

“So I wouldn’t have to leave my house,” she said.

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