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A balcony collapsed with four people on it, a moving vehicle was hit by a falling tree and a large pine toppled onto a neighborhood park.
Though the events were unrelated, there was a common thread: Witnesses and those involved in the mishaps were feeling grateful no one was seriously injured or killed.
FALLING BALCONY
Just before 3 a.m., 20-year-old Kalen Crissman stepped out onto the second-floor balcony of her Palmetto Commons condominium. So did three of her friends. As the last one stepped on the wooden porch, it collapsed. All four plunged 15 feet toward a cement slab.
"One second I was standing, then the next second I see a table coming at my face," said Crissman, who ended up crashing into the rubble and her downstairs neighbor's patio furniture. "We were all pretty shaken up."
She was taken to Hilton Head Regional Medical Center, where it was determined she broke her leg. The three others landed in the bushes, receiving minor cuts.
Palmetto Commons, formerly Pine Court, sits behind the hospital on Lamotte Drive. It was built in 1982, according to county records. The Island Packet was unable to reach a representative of the development Sunday.
Crissman said she examined the wooden remains of the balcony and it appeared to be rotten. A regime manager told her the collapse could have been the result of termite damage, she said.
"Luckily, I just got a whole stack of new movies," Crissman said Sunday afternoon. Her leg is in a splint until doctors determine whether she'll need surgery. Her movie of choice was "Four Brothers," a thriller about four adopted brothers united by tragedy.
FALLING TREES
About eight hours later on Saturday, powerful winds toppled a huge oak tree onto a moving SUV traveling along Spanish Wells Road near Green Home Cottages. The tree smashed up the entire Jeep, except for where the 17-year-old driver was sitting, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff's Office report.
He was uninjured.
"He couldn't have been sitting any other place in the car and not gotten hurt," said Frank Chiaverini, whose home backs up to Spanish Wells Road.
On Saturday, gusts of wind topped 50 mph on Hilton Head, according to the National Weather Service in Charleston.
It was blustery on the mainland as well.
Maria Robertson was awakened at 5 a.m. by a loud cracking sound outside her Bluffton home. She checked for tornado warnings and then fell back asleep.
When she awoke again after daybreak, Robertson saw a 75-foot-tall pine tree completely uprooted and lying across the Hidden Lakes neighborhood park.
"If it happened during the day, it could have killed someone," she said. "My kids were just playing there the day before."
