A 20-foot tree fell and critically injured a woman at a Queens street fair yesterday.
Parents and their children were enjoying the fair along Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood where they heard a loud crack.
The tree fell seconds later, striking Donna Rypkema, 38, a Rikers Island correction officer, on the head.
“She was walking by and it just clocked her,” said Eli Carey, who owns a nearby store.
“It’s like getting struck by lightning. It’s like nothing you could ever dream would happen.”
The dead tree was on an embankment owned by the New York and Atlantic freight railway. Investigators are looking into the possibility that recent storms weakened the tree.
Rypkema, who has a 15-year-old son, is “a revered, beloved and popular correction officer,” department spokesman Stephen Morello said at Wyckoff Heights Hospital.