A man suffered serious chest injuries when he was struck by a tree branch near Berrybank on Saturday morning.
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Ambulance Victoria spokesman Paul Bentley said they were called to the scene on the Foxhow- Berrybank Road near the Hamilton Highway after the man aged in his 50s was injured when a tree fell across the road about 8.35am.
“The man suffered serious chest injuries when he was struck by a fallen branch,” he said. He was taken to Geelong Hospital.
Sergeant Andrew Raven, of Warrnambool police, said the man was a shire worker who had been removing a branch or stump from the road when another branch fell and hit him.
He said the man’s supervisor was also in the area and came across the injured worker and raised the alarm.
A Warrnambool police officer, who was in the area on another job, also came across the injured man who was found just lying on the ground.
Worksafe has been notified of the incident.
Across the state, paramedics have been called to four incidents involving fallen trees in 12 hours that have left seven people in hospital including two with serious injuries.
In the worst accident, five people were taken to hospital after their car hit a tree on the Moyston-Dunkeld Road at Moyston at 11.30pm Friday.
A primary-school-aged boy with head and chest injuries was flown by air ambulance plane to Melbourne and taken by road to the Royal Children's Hospital in a serious condition.
A teenage boy, a man in his 20s and woman in her 30s were taken to Ballarat Base Hospital and were in a stable condition. A toddler with minor facial injuries was also taken to hospital.
Paramedics were called to three other incidents involving fallen trees in an hour this morning.
At 8.25am a woman's car crashed into a fallen tree on the Strezlecki Highway at Berry's Creek. She has facial injuries and was taken to Latrobe Regional Hospital in a stable condition.
Ten minutes later, the council worker was struck by a large tree branch while trying to clear a fallen tree from at Berrybank.
At 9.30am a car was hit by falling tree at Drouin South. A man was assessed at the scene and wasn't taken to hospital.