The final moments before a San Diego County tree trimmer died on the job Sunday were witnessed by his long-time friend and coworker.<\/p>\n
One of the safety ropes was still hanging from where Evaristo Bernabe Sanches died atop a eucalyptus tree near Horton Road in Bonita around 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart is broken because he was my friend for 28 years,” said co-worker Benjamin Avila Saucedo. He says he was on the ground providing support when it happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear pop! And a branch came on top of him in the back and pushed him down. He had the rope safety and the branch coming down and it pulled him. The rope killed him,\u201d said Saucedo.<\/p>\n
Sheriff’s investigators said one of the tree branches fell during the trimming,\u00a0causing the rope to wrap around his body.<\/p>\n
A day after his death, a huge branch still remained on the ground.<\/p>\n
Saucedo said he tried to ladder up to help Evaristo, but it happened too fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had like maybe 11 or 12 seconds only. When he tried to move it, and then … no mas.\u00a0I said, ‘Paisa! Paisa! Breathe in! Breathe in!'” Saucedo said. <\/p>\n
“Paisa” is a shorthand for the Spanish term “paisano”, which refers to someone who shares your home country or region. Both Saucedo and Sanches are from the Mexican state of Guerrero.<\/p>\n
Eucalyptus trees have a deadly history in San Diego County.<\/p>\n
From a 4-year-old boy killed by a fallen branch in 2025 at Villa La Jolla Park, to a woman injured when dozens came crashing down in Balboa Park in 2023.<\/p>\n
Eucalyptus trees are non-native to California and are known for falling over or dropping their large\u00a0limbs, especially in wet and windy conditions like San Diego endured\u00a0over the weekend from Tropical Storm Rachel. Despite their non-native status, they are found throughout the county.<\/p>\n
The sheriff’s department said they are investigating if weather was a factor in the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him in the morning it’s very dangerous,\u00a0 because it’s dangerous and the trees taking the water and it’s easily broken,” Saucedo said.<\/p>\n
Sanches owned the\u00a0tree trimming company while living in Escondido.<\/p>\n
Friends and family describe him as a father with a huge heart, especially when it comes to helping his family<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to make money to\u00a0bring his mom and sister here [San Diego County] because Mexico is very dangerous,” Saucedo said.<\/p>\n
The dangers of Sanches’ job weren\u2019t lost on him. One of his final social media posts last month was about a fellow tree trimmer who died. Sanches captioned it: Tomorrow’s never promised.<\/p>\n
The medical examiner’s office will determine Sanches’ cause of death. Cal\/OSHA has also been notified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The final moments before a San Diego County tree trimmer died on the job Sunday were witnessed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[34643,74,84,76,75],"class_list":["post-494551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-bonita","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}