Husband's life spared after being impaled in 'Final Destination'-like accident

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. - One couple is just thankful to be alive today after a tree fell on their car over the weekend and impaled one of them.

"If anybody knows the movie ‘Final Destination,’ we've always been paranoid of that. That is what it felt like. This was straight out of a movie," said Laura Ballweg.

She, her husband Anthony Sotelo and their son were driving down Roswell Road in Sandy Springs Sunday near North Springs High School when a tree fell on their car during an intense thunderstorm.

"I think it's one in a million. We were just in the wrong storm, bad place, bad timing. But, what we focus on is the positive," Ballweg said. "It could have been so much worse."

Laura Ballweg, her husband Anthony Sotelo and their son were driving down Roswell Road in Sandy Springs when a tree came crashing into the car, impaling one of them. (Credit: Laura Ballweg)

She says the tree struck their car seemingly without warning.

"All of the sudden, an acorn fell on our windshield and my husband goes, ‘Oh my gosh, that sounded like it almost broke our windshield,’ and seconds later is when the tree fell down, crashed through our front windshield," Ballweg said.

Having a large tree come crashing through your windshield is scary enough.

But Ballweg says she and her husband didn’t realize the full extent of what happened until they had driven a little farther down the road to get away from some power lines the tree had knocked down.

"We were both in shock. And so we looked at each other, and he looked down and noticed that there was blood and that there was a branch lodged in him," she said.

That branch had impaled her husband, Sotelo, through the stomach.

Sotelo, who was driving, told FOX 5 from his hospital bed that acting on pure adrenaline, he pulled the branch out of his body.

"I stopped the car right there. I just like pulled it out, and I could see the chunks of me from, like, my insides, on the edge of my shirt and on the tree branch itself," Sotelo said.

Despite the gore, Ballweg says the branch actually missed Sotelo’s internal organs.

"The surgery went great. He's a trooper. He was making jokes the whole time. If you know my husband, that's normal. But in such a time of scariness, I can't believe that he was still so positive," she said.

Their son was also in the car, and thankfully he only walked away with minor injuries.

Ballweg says they’re very grateful everyone, especially Sotelo, is going to be okay. Still, he has a long recovery ahead of him.

"Due to the extent of his injuries, I will be the sole caregiver and working person in our family. So, Anthony is going to be out of work for at least two months," Ballweg said.

The family has started a GoFundMe for them to help pay for expenses while Sotelo recovers.