Mom dies after tree branch falls on her at daughter’s softball camp, PA family says
_fitted.png "A woman was killed by a falling tree branch at a softball camp in Pennsylvania, according to her family.")
A family is mourning after they say a woman was hit by a falling tree branch at a softball camp in Pennsylvania, killing her.
Gendie Miller and her husband, Bill, were watching their daughter play softball at the Western Pennsylvania College Showcase Camp in McKeesport on July 24, WPXI reported.
The couple was sitting under a “large shady tree since temperatures were in the 90s” while their daughter performed drills before a scrimmage in front of college coaches, according to a GoFundMe page.
Then, Bill Miller heard a cracking sound, WTAE reported.
“I said to my wife, ‘Let’s go.’ I jumped out of my chair, felt a small branch of some sort that grazed my leg. And I immediately turned to my right to look back at her, and she was face down with large, multiple branches and limbs,” Bill Miller told the news outlet.
Gendie Miller was knocked unconscious. As she was being transported to a hospital, she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead on arrival, the GoFundMe said.
“It’s such a crazy, freak accident,” family friend Luka Bompiani told WPXI. “There’s no weather involved, no wind. They were just sitting under a tree watching their daughter play softball.”
Nitro Fastpitch 16U Walker said in a Facebook post that the Nitro family mourns the loss of Gendie Miller as it “is felt through waves of grief and sorrow.”
“We didn’t know that could happen so soon. The next few weeks will be tough. I love you Gendie Miller. Until we meet again, I love you forever,” Brandon Bickle, who said Gendie Miller was his aunt, wrote in a Facebook post.
McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said in a statement to WTAE that the city’s “thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time.”
“An evening that started like any other, with families and friends gathered in the park for a game, has ended in tragedy after this horrible accident,” Cherepko said, according to the outlet.
McKeesport is about a 15-mile drive southeast from Pittsburgh.
This story was originally published July 27, 2025 at 1:05 PM with the headline "Mom dies after tree branch falls on her at daughter’s softball camp, PA family says."