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PROVO — BenJoe Markland said he didn't know why he set up his sons' sleeping bags backward, but he's grateful he did.
"I don't know why, I thought it would be easier for them," he said. "Every day I saw it, I thought, 'this is the dumbest idea, making them sleep backwards.' But none of us changed it."
He said if his sons had been sleeping in the other direction, they might have been killed by the tree that fell on the family's tent when they were camping Monday night.
Benjoe Markland and his wife, Delena, came to Primary Children's Hospital Wednesday to thank all those at the campsite and hospital who came to the aid of their family, and to recount the traumatic events that transpired when a 30-foot tree smashed onto the family tent.
Two brothers, 9-year-old Joseph and 7-year-old Dallin Markland, were sleeping side-by-side on steel cots when a large tree fell on top of them in the middle of the night. They are part of a family of six who were visiting Provo for a family reunion, the start of a month-long family vacation.
"I woke up to the sound of cracking and I immediately knew that something bad was about to happen," Delena Markland, the children's mother, said. "It just got louder and it got closer and I just started screaming."
The incident happened just before 4 a.m. at the Lakeside RV Campground, 4000 W. Center in Provo. The family, originally from Ogden, had arrived July 6 from their home in El Salvador, where BenJoe Markland runs the Latin American division for call center Focus Services.
The father said he remembers waking up moments before the tree fell. He rolled over to protect the 3-year-old twins sleeping beside him. Then he watched as the tree crashed, collapsing the tent and pinning the boys to their cots.
"It's just a cry of sheer terror," Delena Markland said, recalling the screams of her boys. "It's that cry that as a parent, you just have to be able to do something...and when you can't, it's the worst feeling in the world."
What the parents initially thought was a fallen tree branch turned out to be a 30-foot-tall tree with a trunk almost 3 feet in diameter. Provo Fire spokesman Dean York said the tree was a type of willow, but firefighters have another name for it:
"This was a widowmaker," York said. "They were lucky. Between the age of the tree and the wind, (it was) just an accident."
Other family members and campers rushed over to try and free the family from the tree.
“They didn’t think about themselves at all," BenJoe Markland said. "They came out in their bare feet, in their underwear, in the pitch black and started lifting a tree from someone they didn’t know. To us, they’re heroes."
Delena Markland said she laid on her back, trying to push up the tree with her feet. Both parents said they hoped their adrenaline would enable them to push the tree off their children. But even with more than 15 people trying to lift it, the trunk barely moved.
"I thought they were going to die," Delena Markland said. "Dallin stopped crying. I couldn’t hear him, and I just thought, ‘he’s gone.’”
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Boys injured by fallen tree recovering and 'very happy,' father says
The family of two boys injured when a tree fell on the tent they were sleeping in expressed gratitude Tuesday to everyone who has helped them.When the mother told her husband she couldn't hear Dallin anymore, he said he called out to his son. Dallin answered immediately, saying he was OK.
The father realized that Dallin wasn't trapped underneath the trunk of the tree. He cut open the tent and the sleeping bag where Dallin was huddled and pulled him out.
After Dallin was free, the father had a better look at how Joseph was pinned. One of the family members managed to wedge his knee underneath the tree and with more than 20 people helping, BenJoe Markland managed to slide Joseph out from under the tree.
Paramedics arrived moments after he was freed around 4:20 a.m. Both injured boys were taken to Utah Valley Hospital before being transferred by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital in serious conditions.
Joseph suffered from a fractured orbital socket, lacerated liver, two fractures on his pelvis, a fractured arm and lots of bruising on his lungs and intestine.
The younger brother, Dallin, escaped with a broken femur.
"There were angels there that night," their mother said. "There were angels, and they were surrounding our children."
There was also the will of the boys, including 9-year-old Joseph, who continued calling out to his brother throughout the ordeal. " 'Be strong, Dallin, be strong,'" the mother said she heard him call. "That's just the kind of kid he is."
The boys are expected to make a full recovery, though Delena Markland said her children are facing another kind of challenge: "They’re kind of mad their summer vacation is on hold,” she said with a chuckle. "They were pretty mad about that.”
Another camper at the scene took a branch from the fallen tree to make wooden medallions for each member of the family.
"We have a little memory of the tree," Delena said, fingering the medallion around her neck. "We can always remember how blessed we were."
Contributing: Sam Penrod
