Mateo Ortiz

The hulking American elm weathered every storm it had seen for as much as a century, stoically standing its ground. The tree was so big it hardly swayed even when the biggest storms howled around it — as they had been doing all week in downtown San Jose.

Esmerelda Galan, who lived in the tree's shadow on 7th Street, probably was seeking the protection of its canopy of branches when she eased the white pickup truck to the curb Friday night. It had rained most of the evening, and the old elm would allow Galan to get her 2-year-old son Mateo Ortiz out of his car seat without getting too wet.

Mateo was between Esmerelda and her husband, Jose Mora, as they sat together in the truck. They had only been in front of Galan's family home for a minute talking in the quiet dark, when the giant elm suddenly — unimaginably — came crashing down on them.

Even more horribly, the full weight of the massive tree landed squarely on the little boy. Despite desperate efforts by firefighters to revive the child, Mateo died later at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

Little angel

The tragedy unfolded shortly after 9 p.m., just as Esmerelda's brother, Rolo Galan, was bringing his own son Joseph and Mateo's brother home from a night out at Chuck E. Cheese. "We had fun, and the whole time we were there, we were saying, 'We should have brought Mateo, we should have brought Mateo,'" Rolo Galan said Saturday, his eyes red with tears. "But it was too late. It was too late."

By Saturday afternoon, the carcass of the 10-ton tree had been cut into sections, and lay outside the tidy home on the corner of Margaret Street. Galan stood on the porch staring at it, trying to comprehend what befallen his family.

"He was our little angel," Rolo Galan said. "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do. It's like we hit a brick wall. We really don't know how to take this. I'm still stunned. I feel like I'm dreaming or something."

But it was a bad dream, one that the family felt coming all day Friday. "I felt a bad presence in my heart," he said. "My mother felt it too."

The next door neighbors called 911 after hearing the tree come thundering down at 9:20 p.m., and the first of eight rescue trucks from the San Jose Fire Department arrived within six minutes. But it would take another 15 minutes for the truck equipped with the Jaws of Life. Meanwhile, chain saws were used to cut the tree apart to remove it from atop the truck.

Firefighters spent 40 minutes frantically trying extricate the family. It took an hour to remove Mateo and his father, and another 20 minutes before Esmerelda Galan was freed. She was taken to another hospital, the name of which the family declined to disclose, and was still being treated there Saturday night.

"The tree collapsed right down the middle of the cab, and the boy was in the middle, so the brunt of it hit him first" said Captain Barry Stallard, San Jose Fire Department spokesman. One indication of how little warning the parents had was their injuries: Jose Mora had a broken left arm, and his wife a broken right arm, both likely sustained as they reached desperately for their child.

But the parents could do nothing to help Mateo, and there was little conversation between them and the firefighters attempting to rescue them. "When you get hit that hard, your body goes into shock just to survive," Stallard said, "You really can't say much. The more severe your injuries are, the quieter you become."

Stallard said the tree's roots were rotted, and in the aftermath of January's 13 days of soaking rains, the saturated ground was suspected of causing the tree to topple so suddenly.

Rotted roots

But according to Joe Bathurst, an arborist in San Jose for more than 30 years, the cause may be more complicated than that. Bathurst came to inspect the elm Saturday because, he said, he was one of several tree specialists who have been watching the old elms downtown for years.

"I've always thought there might be problems with those trees," said Bathurst, owner of Complete Tree Care. "That tree should have been 150 feet tall instead of 60 feet. But they've topped it and topped it because those trees are considered historical landmarks."

Bathurst confirmed that the tree's root crown was "very, very rotted out," but said it shouldn't have been a surprise to the city, which is responsible for trees in the small strip between the sidewalk and the street. "That could have been predicted in my opinion," he said. "I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but the city arborist or the city's tree preservation people should have been able to locate the problem."

And it may not be the only one. "The sister to that tree is another 50 feet or so down the street," Bathurst said. "I'd be surprised if that tree is standing there a month from now."

Attempts to reach city officials Saturday for comment were unsuccessful.

By Saturday evening, Mateo's shaken family was still attempting to come to grips with what had happened, gathering at the house where the remnants of the tree lay, greeting each other with covered dishes and hugs. "I play every day with him," said Mateo's great-uncle, Polo Torres, struggling to put his grief into English. "But there's not going to be more him."