Teacher injured by tree thanks rescue workers and strangers

Robin Dormer remembers the sound of the falling tree.

She recalls her husband, Craig, screaming her name.

And she will never forget the off-duty nurse, Olivia, with the calming voice who probably kept her from going into shock that summer afternoon.

In an emotional and gripping Facebook post last week, Dormer, 58, recounted the ordeal of being trapped underneath a fallen pine tree at the Mariposa Art Park on Aug. 14, before a Music on the Green performance.

Dormer was taken by helicopter to Fresno Community Hospital where she has undergone several surgeries for a fractured ankle, broken ribs, wrist and three fractured vertebrae.

“I don’t think any of us has really processed how close we came to losing everything that night,” she writes.

Dormer, an education specialist at the Mariposa County Unified School District, said she is “incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped us so far with this nightmare.”

After hearing the branch drop, Dormer remembers being flat on the ground underneath a huge canopy of pine branches with the wind knocked out of her. She couldn’t speak or yell.

Her husband, Craig, who was also injured, told her he found her lying underneath the branches in a fetal position.

That is where she stayed as strangers held back tree limbs, until fire crews and EMTs were able to remove the tree branches and stabilize her.

She remembers Barbara Cone placing a blanket under her head.

She remembers the familiar voice of Mariposa County Sheriff’s Deputy Josh Collins, assuring her they were on the job.

And Olivia. The nurse. The voice.

“There was something about having that calm voice next to me that kept me from completely losing it,” Dormer writes.

“I was terrified, but Olivia kept me grounded. Olivia, I don’t know you yet, but I’m looking forward to connecting with you!”

Reflecting on the night, Dormer said she is incredibly grateful, but also haunted by the ‘what if’s.’

“What if there had been children dancing around that area like there usually are? What if I had been three feet in another direction and the trunk had hit me instead of the branches?” she wonders.

What is so striking about the Facebook post is how vividly, and candidly, Dormer talks about the complicated mix of emotions, the trauma coexisting with gratefulness.

“I’ve had a couple of breakdowns as I’ve tried to process what happened. There are moments when the reality of it hits me all over again. It’s like a movie that won’t stop playing out in my mind.”

She has also felt the strength of the community around her, she says, including hundreds of messages from students, friends and family.

“Have you ever felt like you just can’t say ‘I love you’ enough? That’s where we are right now,” she writes.