Jasmine Massey, of Elmont, recovering after tree branch fell on car

An Elmont woman is recovering after a tree branch smashed through the windshield of the car she was driving onto the Northern State Parkway in Roslyn Heights and left a hole “the size of a doughnut” in her leg.

At around 1:15 p.m. Thursday, Jasmine Massey, 57, of Elmont, was entering the Northern State Parkway from Roslyn Road in Roslyn Heights in a red Lexus when a tree limb fell on her car and impaled her right leg, state police confirmed.

The incident marked Massey's first-ever car crash, which she said happened “within a second.”

“The branch came so fast because that day was so windy,” Massey said in a phone interview from her hospital bed at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset on Friday evening. She described the hunk of wood as “big” and “dry.”

“The branch fell on the glass, broke the glass, and then one branch was stuck in my leg, my right thigh, just stabbing,” she said. “Another branch struck my left thigh, and I was just screaming.”

Massey, who works as a home health aide, said she watched a few cars zoom by before some good Samaritans stopped. After she dialed 911 on her own phone, she said she handed it to a man who stopped, as she said she could not provide her location due to the pain.

“One lady came over, she said, ‘Honey, are you OK?’ I said, ‘No,’ ” Massey recalled. “She saw my legs and she started praying.”

Members of the Roslyn Fire Department had to extricate Massey from the vehicle, Nassau County Assistant Chief Fire Marshal James Hickman said.

From around 2:45 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Massey was in the operating room at North Shore University Hospital, where she had surgery on her right thigh, according to her husband, Parvez Massey. He added that while they do not yet know all the details about her recovery, they expect she will be discharged Sunday.

He said his wife was lucky the injury wasn't even worse. “Thank goodness there was no damage to the bone, no damage to the muscle, no damage to nerves or the vessels,” he said.

The Elmont woman managed to take a few steps using a walker Friday.

“I can’t stand right now because there is too much burning in the hole in my thigh,” she said. “It’s a big hole, big, the size of a doughnut.”

The Lexus, which she said she was borrowing from a friend to give that friend's mother a ride, was totaled.

“They said ‘Don’t worry about the car,’ ” she said, choking up. “They said, ‘We need you. A car we can replace, but not you.’ ”