A tree falling in a forest might not “make a sound” if no one’s around to hear it, but you most definitely will hear a massive cactus smashing onto your truck during a heavy rainstorm. One unfortunate truck owner in Arizona met this fate with his vehicle when his saguaro cactus, valued at around $10,000, fell over due to the weight of the water. His truck, parked in the driveway, had its bed smashed in by the plant, dealing $5,000 worth of damage.
True to the situation, the Arizona truck driver posted the aftermath of the fall in r/Wellthatsucks, explaining the damage and how it all happened. The rainstorm was more or less the straw that broke the camel’s back, as “years of overwatering and intense heavy rain” is what caused it to eventually collapse. The truck damages, we can probably understand, but as to why he valued the cactus as “$10K,” one commenter provided a reason: “Same reason trees can get expensive. Takes a lot of time to get that big.” A reply expanded on the concept, saying that “This saguaro was very likely over 100 years old” and “can get massive and have an average life span of about 150-175 years.”
“That is a prickly situation you have there,” joked a Reddit user, and they weren’t wrong. OP claimed he had to get a permit just to move since cacti are subject to “tree law,” not to mention that saguaros are a protected species in Arizona. On top of the trouble of getting the fallen cactus moved about, the poster explains how it needed a two-man crosscut to slice the plant into pieces. A chainsaw made too much of a mess, considering how juicy the insides are. At the very least, no one was crushed, but the incident does teach a lesson about not underestimating how heavy a cactus is.
