Tree Falls on Cam­pus: Stu­dent In­jured

MISHAWAKA—On Sun­day evening, Aug. 29, a tree fell in front of Bren­ne­man Hall, one of the Founders dorms. The tree scraped the front of the build­ing and landed on a stu­dent. The stu­dent is re­ported to be al­right over­all, suf­fer­ing from a bro­ken an­kle and a few scrapes and bruises.

“The tree was old,” Head of Main­te­nance Joe Zap­pia said. “It did not ap­pear to have any dam­age. We are now do­ing an as­sess­ment through­out cam­pus. There is an ar­borist who will go around and look at all the trees.”

There was an as­sess­ment done years ago and quite a few trees have been taken down over the years. The prob­lem is that many trees do not ap­pear to be dead or in dan­ger of falling, but the in­ci­dent on Aug. 29 proves this may still some­times be the case, so it is hard to dis­tin­guish be­tween healthy and dis­eased trees. How­ever, with an ex­pert com­ing in, the prob­lem is be­ing taken care of. There was a sig­nif­i­cant amount of dam­age done to the front of Bren­ne­man Hall, and the es­ti­mate is that there is about $20,000 to $30,000 worth of fix­ing up to do.