Elementary-age girls, counselors rescued after fallen tree hits cabin

A cabin near Stony Lake was destroyed by a falling tree Thursday night, trapping 12 elementary-aged girls and their two counselors inside. The kids were attending a program at Camp Ao-Wa-Kiya.

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It happened on Thomas Pike near S 28th Avenue around 2 a.m. Thursday morning. A group of young girls and their two female counselors were asleep when a massive oak tree dropped one of its branches on top of their cabin.

Michigan State Police tells FOX 17 it was a group of 3rd-, 4th- and 5th-grade girls and their two adult counselors.

"We got a good couple gusts of wind,” explained Benjamin White-Elder, a firefighter and EMT with the Shelby-Benona Fire Department.

Crews had to traverse a dark and narrow dirt road getting back to the camp. They were able to assemble a lighting apparatus and call in the folks at Eagle Towing to pick up and secure the branch.

"Eagle Towing were brought out to kind of stabilize the large limb with their wrecker while we kind of cut it up into smaller chunks,” White-Elder explained. "You have so many different moving parts and moving pieces, from chainsaws to chains and heavy, heavy timber logs.”

One counselor was pinned to their bed by the fallen tree.

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The drivers at Eagle Towing were already on standby with Electric Forest happening nearby and were able to arrive quickly.

An EMT maintained contact with the adult counselor while crews worked to get her out.

It took them about an hour to an hour and a half to fully extricate the woman.

Both adult counselors sustained minor physical injuries and had to be checked out at the hospital.

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"To me, it's just a big 'praise the Lord,'" said Camp Ao-Wa-Kiya Director Mike Deen.

"Just the fact that God was watching over all of those students, those leaders that were in that cabin."

Both counselors were back at the camp later in the morning, reunited with their campers by midday Thursday.

"I talked to her just a little while ago and she's doing very well, enjoying being with back with her girls," Deen said regarding the counselor temporarily trapped under the debris.

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It is still unclear as to how or why that particular branch fell onto the cabin.

"We don't have any really idea on that at this point in time," Deen said Thursday afternoon. "We live in a forest with large oak trees."

Regardless, everyone is under agreement that the situation could have been far worse.

"They were under God's care the entire time and He took care of them," Deen said. "That was my sense of relief, and a sense of peace as well.”

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