A 12-year-old student from Our Lady of Victory Catholic School in Northville died Thursday after a 20-foot-tall tree with a rotted trunk fell and struck him at the Howell Nature Center.
The boy was transported in critical condition by the University of Michigan Survival Flight to Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, where he died at about 8 p.m.
According to Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, the boy was on what was intended to be an overnight field trip at the nature center, located at 1005 Triangle Lake Road in Marion Township.
The students were to spend Thursday at the nature center, camp out overnight, and return home on Friday.
Murphy said chaperones were teaching the students how to make a fire when they heard loud crackling. Fearing that a tree was falling, members of the group took off running; a tree fell and struck the boy.
“The kid just ran the wrong way,” Murphy said.
The Howell Nature Center will be closed on Friday.
