A New Jersey woman is lucky to be alive Thursday after a mammoth tree crashed through her home -- while she was watching TV on the couch -- amid severe weather a day ago.
Her husband was in a separate area when it happened, and he administered first aid until police arrived at their home in Park Ridge. The woman was taken to Hackensack Hospital, but has since been released.
Power remained out in her area Thursday morning. She was among nearly 43,000 customers in the state without it.
Storms produced abundant lightning and some produced damaging wind and hail late Wednesday afternoon and into the evening hours.
The storms brought hail and wind damage in the form of downed trees while moving east from the Midwest. There were numerous reports of downed trees and wires throughout northern New Jersey and into New York, with some people getting trapped in a car in Bayside, Queens, as a result.
One man in East Orange, New Jersey, had a tree fall on him around 8:30 p.m. He died.
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Transit and air travel were also heavily disrupted.
