Seven family members — including five children — were injured Wednesday after a giant tree branch fell on them at the San Antonio Zoo, according to local reports.
The branch “unexpectedly broke and fell” on the visitors around 12:05 pm local time, according to a Texas zoo official cited by local TV station KSAT.
Two adults and four children were listed in stable condition, according to NBC 5.
A fifth child is in critical condition, according to the station.
Six of the victims were originally treated by the zoo’s security before being taken to the hospital.
A tree branch unexpectedly broke and fell at the San Antonio Zoo on Wednesday. KSATThe ages of the seven victims have not been released.
“It’s such an unfortunate situation and a busy spring break day at the zoo,” Hope Roth, the park’s vice president of marketing, told KSAT.
A woman who claims to be the mother of one of the victims posted on Facebook that she was at the hospital for hours with her daughter, who was put to sleep as doctors ran tests.
One person was critically injured by the tree. KSAT“Please pray she comes out okay. There was a lot of blood at the scene, it all happened so fast there was no time to react. This all just feel so surreal,” she wrote.
Dramatic video of the aftermath posted on TikTok shows zoo guests scrambling to help lift up the limb to free those trapped beneath it as a mother desperately screams for her baby.
In another video shared on Facebook by witness Brandy Lorraine, people can be heard yelling beneath the branch amid the chaos.
“Please pray for these people,” Lorraine says in the clip.
