SANTA CRUZ >> A 1-year-old boy is in stable condition after being critically injured Tuesday night when high winds sent a broken tree top crashing through his family’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

According to Boulder Creek Fire Protection District Fire Chief Mark Bingham, crews were dispatched to Bobcat Lane in Boulder Creek around 6:25 p.m. in response to reports of a tree top that careened into a home “like a spear” after it snapped in half during the turbulent wind storm.

Bingham said six people were inside the structure at the time of the incident with multiple injuries reported, including to the infant. First responders began removing chunks of the tree and clearing a path to the baby, who was trapped in the wreckage and drifting in and out of consciousness.After gaining access to the baby, crews immediately engaged in lifesaving medical measures until the arrival of an ambulance, which transported the baby to Dominican Hospital. Bingham said transport services began 29 minutes after crews arrived at the scene.

The baby was later moved to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s trauma center where his family reported Wednesday morning that he was in stable condition, according to Bingham.

“I was very proud of all the Boulder Creek and Cal Fire responders,” Bingham told the Sentinel. “They thought outside the box and threw everything at it that we had with their tools and training.”

The boy was in the living room of the single-family home when the tree crashed through, pinning him, Bingham said. Neighbor Pat McCue rushed over to help.

“It almost looked like the tree punched the baby through the floor,” Pat McCue said.

The tree pinned the baby’s lap but didn’t actually go through. The boy’s father got home and was holding the baby from behind and trying to keep him conscious.

“He was saying, ‘Don’t stop crying,’ “ McCue said.

Yvonne Gruenstein-Harvey, 62, who lives next door, said she was trying to restart her power generator because the electricity was out when she “heard the crack, and felt the earth quake.”

The falling tree sheared off limbs from adjacent trees as it came down that fell on Gruenstein-Harvey’s roof, causing minor damage, then came to a rest just above her roof.

“I came out here and saw that and had PTSD,” Gruenstein-Harvey said, referring to the syndrome of stress from prior trauma and explaining her family had evacuated from the CZU Lightning Complex fires that destroyed Big Basin park and many surrounding homes in August 2020.

But the bigger concern was for her neighbors, when the boy’s mother came outside pleading for help.

“She was running out, screaming, ‘We need some help, somebody call 911,’ “ Gruenstein-Harvey said.

According to Bingham, Boulder Creek experienced 50 mph wind gusts Wednesday and his unit alone had 20 storm-related calls, including six structure collisions.

Looking ahead

National Weather Service meteorologist Brooke Bingaman told the Sentinel that while the first phase of this notably cold storm system has passed through, the region isn’t out of the woods quite yet.

She said another system is set to arrive Thursday night, bringing moisture and other dangerous conditions.

“Because this air mass is so cold, … some of our higher elevations could see that precipitation fall as snow instead of rain,” she said. “The unique thing about the Santa Cruz Mountains is Highway 17 and we have a lot of people that live in those mountains.”

Bingaman says snow is expected Thursday and Friday at elevations of 1,500 feet and higher with a potential for some “light flurries” in lower-lying areas. The Highway 17 summit is at about 1,800 feet, making the route especially perilous for thousands of commuters. Higher elevation areas in the mountains could experience as much as a foot of snowfall, said Bingaman.

To make matters worse, trees already made unstable during the torrent of storms earlier this year will remain a hazard as the windy conditions persist.

“The trees that didn’t fall — some of them are weak from all those storms so it’s easier for them to go down in these storms,” said Bingaman, cautioning that residents should prepare for continued outages and road closures.

Cal Fire spokesperson Cecile Juliette told the Sentinel that crews responded to 84 calls in unincorporated Santa Cruz County in a roughly 24-hour period. Other than the now-stable infant from Boulder Creek, no major injuries had been reported as of Wednesday morning, she said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 12 emergency closures were listed on the county’s road advisory website, many from downed trees and wires.

According to Pacific Gas & Electric, more than 165,000 customers in Northern and Central California lost power Tuesday. In Santa Cruz County, more than 2,000 customers were still without power as of 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, according PG&E’s outage map.

The storm knocked out power at UC Santa Cruz, which kept the Family Student Housing and Early Education Services closed Wednesday morning and caused wifi connectivity problems on campus.

Bay Area News Group contributed to this story.