A massive tree branch snapped above a Bed-Stuy street Tuesday — falling so fast onto the head of a 43-year-old resident, he had no chance to even scream.
Wayne Knight, 43, had been walking down MacDonough Street at around 2:30 p.m., waving to neighbors on a nearby stoop, when the bough and a piece of the tree’s trunk itself broke and fell.
“I just watched as the tree just cracked in half and fell on top of him,” Shay Wilson, 34, said of watching the freak accident after having had a brief exchange with the victim.
Wilson said he ran over to try and free Knight from beneath the weight of the tree trunk.
“I was poking him and trying to wake him up and asking if he was OK,” Wilson remembered.
“He didn’t scream; he was totally quiet. He was knocked unconscious,” the shocked witness said. “I didn’t know if he was dead or not.”
Another witness, Paul DeJesus, 64, a former FDNY medic, said the sound of the tree ripping apart sounded “like two-by-fours being snapped in half.”
“It was like a cracking followed by several loud pops,” he said. “It came down quick. It happened before I could blink.”
“He was breathing, but it was very shallow.”
Firefighters and EMTs arrived within minutes and began hacking the tree apart with chainsaws, freeing the badly injured Knight.
He was rushed to Brookdale Hospital in serious condition.
Knight’s brother, Donovan Knight, 44, went to the accident scene after visiting his brother in the hospital.
“I needed to see what put my brother in that [hospital] bed,” he said, before being overcome with emotion.
“I can’t believe that this happened. He didn’t deserve this. He’s a good guy. “
“They have him on a respirator right now at the hospital,” Donovan continued. “He’s got tubes down his throat. He’s still unconscious right now. This is so messed up.”
Neighbors said the tree was previously damaged and the city had removed part of it, leaving only a dangling cluster of branches above where pedestrians walk.