By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE
The middle-aged couple were heading home to Rotorua after a day out in Tauranga late on Sunday afternoon when a 30m gum tree toppled from a roadside bank on to their car.
In a cruel blow of fate, a sharp branch stabbed through the roof, impaling Marilyn Erica
Robinson in the passenger seat.
A couple of days short of her 56th birthday, she died at the scene as rescuers worked frantically to free her from the wreckage.
Her shocked friend, a 60-year-old Rotorua man, escaped with minor injuries. So, too, did a 65-year-old Tauranga man travelling the opposite way along rural Pyes Pa Rd.
Acting Sergeant Mike Fischer of the Greerton police strategic traffic unit said the soil around the big old eucalypt, perched above a 40m bank, had been loosened by the weekend's heavy rain.
A sharp earthquake minutes before the accident made it more precarious.
Travelling behind Mrs Robinson as the road wound down to a valley was Peter Mole, with his wife and two children, returning to their nearby home after enjoying the last day of the school holidays.
"I saw the tree moving on the bank. I braked and it was already halfway down," Mr Mole said yesterday.
"The whole lot tipped over. It was that quick. We stopped just in time."
He and his wife instinctively put their arms up over the windscreen to shield their children, aged 10 and 6. A branch clipped the bonnet of their car and they feared more were to come.
Yesterday workmen were chainsawing the rest of the stand of unstable gum trees and part of Pyes Pa Rd was closed to traffic for most of the day.
Contractors will remove all two dozen of the big, shallow-rooting gums over the next few days.
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