A family in Brooklyn, New York, is recounting their encounter with death when a tree suddenly fell behind them.
Just seconds before the tree came down, Shelly, Ben and Michael were talking about how old the tree looked.
“‘Wow! That tree looks very old.’ As we were about to go under the tree, we heard cracking noises. I managed to move to the other side just in time as the tree collapsed,” Ben Kerstein narrated.
It happened on Saturday around 4 p.m. Shelly, Ben and Shelly’s brother Michael were on their way to a family gathering.
After the tree fell, video showed that the inside of it was hollow, and there was nothing but dust. The top of the tree had been cut off long ago.
“It was an older tree. It was super dead, but enough that if it had landed on us, we would’ve been dead,” Ben Kerstein said.
The tree is gone now. The Parks Department told our sister station WABC-TV that the tree does not belong to them.
Ben and his wife, Shelly Kerstein, said it could have been worse.
“I just can’t imagine the thought process if our kids had been a few feet, lagging behind us,” Ben Kerstein said.
His wife says their kids could have been flattened if they had been with them.
Despite the close call, Ben Kerstein found a reason to rejoice and was captured on video dancing moments after the tree fell.
“There was no other way, God saved us. We had to celebrate, you know,” he said.
His wife says she’s not surprised and that it’s just his instinct.
In the meantime, there was more craziness for Ben and Shelly on Wednesday.
“We got two flats on the expressway, but we’re still dancing,” Ben Kerstein said.
It’s another reminder that we can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond.
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