Police identify woman killed by falling tree branch in Capitol Hill Park; witnesses heard ‘loud bangs’ before the branch crashed down

Police in Washington, DC, have determined the identity of the woman who was killed when a falling tree branch struck her in a park on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Police identified her as 35-year-old Sarah Noah of Southeast DC. She was struck by the branch that fell from a tree in Garfield Park just before 7:30 a.m. and became trapped underneath.

Three different witnesses told Washington police they heard “several loud bangs/cracks” before the branch fell, causing people in the park to run for cover, a police report said.

Officers called to the park attempted to lift the branch off the woman, but it was too heavy. DC Fire and EMS had to use chainsaws to break the branch apart before it could be removed from the woman.

On Wednesday, officials with the Washington, D.C. Department of Transportation, which is responsible for maintaining the park’s trees, called the incident “shocking and tragic.”

A DDOT official said the 100-year-old tree was recently examined and rated “good” – essentially second on a five-point scale from “excellent” to “dead.”

“This is essentially an unforeseeable event,” said Earl Eutsler, deputy director of DDOT’s Division of Urban Forestry. “The tree was professionally inspected and proactively managed, and the tree has shown no signs – no external signs – that this was even a remote possibility.”

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