'Lucky to be alive': Ontario couple recounts tree limb landing on their ATV during downburst
Carlita Melo says she's been picking bits of glass off herself for two weeks, since a storm swept across southwestern Ontario.
The Aug. 5 downburst happened in the New Scotland area of Chatham-Kent — near Rondeau Provincial Park — around 1:15 p.m. ET.
Western University's Northern Tornadoes Project says investigators determined the downburst's damage path was over an area 0.6 kilometres long and 3.9 kilometres wide, with an estimated wind speed of 125 km/h. Tree and roof damage was reported in multiple locations.
Melo and her boyfriend, Henry Boswell, were riding in a ATV with a roof on it and surrounding windshields. The couple live in the small rural community of Shrewsbury. They sell and cut wood for a living, using the all-terrain vehicle to transport their product.
That's when the weather made an about-face — and the wind picked up.
"It was sunny before we hit that road, and all of a sudden, it just got so foggy … kind of started looking pretty ugly," said Melo.
The rain came too, and that's when a large tree limb from a big maple came crashing down on to their vehicle.
"It kind of pushed us down to the floor. It was just a very scary moment. We saw our lives before our eyes."
A look inside at the farm vehicle that was hit by a large tree limb during an Aug. 5 downburst in Chatham-Kent near Rondeau Provincial Park. (Carlita Melo/Facebook )
The farm vehicle they were riding is a diesel combo, according to Boswell.
"Thank God what we were driving has a very heavy-duty cab on it. If it was a normal side-by-side … people would have probably got hurt very bad."
Boswell says they didn't hear anything before the tree limb came down.
"You were just driving along and it just smashed us down. It was awful."
A Chatham-Kent tree where a large limb fell on top of an ATV with people inside during a downburst Aug. 5, 2024. (Carlita Melo/Facebook)
The couple crawled out the back window of the ATV — and got cut up because of broken windshields around the vehicle.
"We had to get out in case that tree fell on top of us, the rest of the tree," said Melo.
"I'm lucky to be alive," added Boswell. "When I go by that tree [now], I don't get a good feeling."
Melo says she's just glad to still be here today.
"It's like a mind game. The emotions, the stuff that's going through our heads. This is not good."
An ATV in Chatham-Kent, Ont., shown before it was struck by a tree limb in a big storm in early August. (Carlita Melo/Facebook)
