Suburban Father Describes Freak Accident On Camping Trip That Killed Daughter

(CBS) -- A camping trip to Wisconsin ends tragically for a family from far northwest suburban Cary.

10-year-old girl Allison Spahr died after a tree fell on her family's tent during a storm in Devil's Lake State Park.

CBS 2 spoke with the injured and still shocked father after returning from a camping trip without the youngest of his five children.

Kevin Spahr is back at home at Cary in McHenry County nursing an injured leg. His daughter, Allison, died after being pinned under a tree that fell onto their tent during a storm early Sunday morning.

Spahr said he started hearing creaking during a rain storm and within about 30 seconds he said it was chaos.

"And then this loud crash, boom on the ground. My legs were immediately pinned and it hurt. I had this shooting pain in my legs. And my tent was flattened across my face," Spahr told WBBM's Steve Miller.

He was pinned with his son right next to him, but he didn't hear a word from his daughter.

"She was just a gracious and a caring girl. She was Daddy's special counselor, I guess. She knew when I was discouraged about something or frustrated about something. She could look past even my faults at their worst and give me a hug and tell me she loved me."

The DNR said it was possibly lightning or wind. The dad, a long-time camper, thinks it was the ground, saying it was simply saturated, causing the tree to completely up-root. The dad described it as freakish.