By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
EAST HARLEM — A Harlem mom was lucky to be alive Friday after wind from a heavy rain storm sent a tree in her neighbor's backyard crashing down on top of her.
"I was getting ready to go to work and my son came in and said 'Mommy's stuck under the tree!,'" Catherina Villafuerte's husband, Hector Cordero, said.
"She was in this little nook with branches all over her. … Any other spot, she's dead."
Cordero, a CUNY professor, said his wife was conscious when he pulled her out from under the downed tree shortly before 6 a.m. He said she'd been struck in the head and back.
A neighbor called 911 and Villafuerte, 39, was taken from her home, on East 117th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues, to the Cornell Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, according to Cordero and an FDNY official.
"She was screaming because I heard her from upstairs," said Natasha Rosa, 24, a family friend who was staying with them at the time of the incident.
Villafuerte, a college prep coordinator at a Brooklyn school, had been cleaning leaves out of a gutter when the tree fell on top of her, according to her husband.
The tree, which snapped at the trunk, had been planted by a neighbor about 20 years ago, according to Cordero.
