Woman killed by falling tree

Funeral services are scheduled Thursday for a 36-year-old woman killed when a tree fell on the car she was traveling in outside LaPorte.

Sarah Swisher, of Kingsford Heights, died Saturday morning several hours after the freak accident.

According to LaPorte County Sheriff's Department, she was bleeding severely from a head injury.

In his report, Deputy Cade Cooper noted Swisher was in the backseat of a 2005 Nissan Sentra northbound on Ind. 39 about 6 p.m. Friday south of the LaPorte Municipal Airport.

According to authorities, the driver, Charity Mitchell, 37, of Kingsfords Heights, told investigators she did not remember the accident but when she came to she was pinned in the vehicle.

The victim's husband, Sean Swisher, 44, told officers “all of a sudden it looked as though several branches were falling from the sky.”

Sean Swisher told investigators the vehicle came to an abrupt stop and all of them were trapped inside.

He said his wife, seated behind he driver, was not wearing a seat belt, police said.

Cooper said the tree fell directly onto the driver's side roof of the car, police said.

Sean Swisher complained of pain to his chest while Mitchell complained of pain to her back.

Cooper said a wrecker was dispatched to the scene and lifted the tree off the car to allow all three of the occupants to be freed from the wreckage.

The accident occurred along a heavily wooded stretch of Ind. 39 adjacent to Luhr County Park.

According to her obituary, Sarah Swisher graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago.

She attended St. John’s Lutheran Church in LaPorte and loved to garden.

A Celebration of Life Service will be held Thursday at St. John’s Lutheran Church in LaPorte at 6 p.m. Condolences describing Sarah Swisher as a “wonderful treasurer” and “very talented” were posted on her Facebook page, which included comments about her being “sweet” and able to make people laugh.

“She was amazingly talented and had a smile that was infectious to everyone around. She just had a way of making you happy,” her cousin, Sacha Gee-Burns of LaPorte, said.