Jenna Krell was on her way to pick up her son from school Friday afternoon when the Santa Ana winds brought a massive tree down on her minivan as she drove along McBean Parkway.

“I froze,” she told CBS LA. “Like, I didn’t know what to do, and all of a sudden someone opens my passenger door, and there’s 20 people trying to get me out of my car.”

Twenty strangers, just like that. One of them called her husband, Brett. The kids weren’t in the car, and Jenna walked away - sore and dealing with back pain, but alive, and already talking about soccer games and future weddings.

The minivan, which the family had driven for more than a decade, took the hit and got her home one last time.

Friday’s wind event put the whole valley on edge for a reason - gusts topped 45 mph across the SCV, and more than 90,000 Southern California Edison customers across L.A. and Ventura counties lost power as the utility cut electricity to reduce fire risk.

But the part of this story worth holding onto isn’t the tree. It’s the 20 people who ran toward it.