A 45-year-old Dublin woman was killed when a tree, felled by 100 mile an hour winds, pinned her to the ground on Thursday.

Police said Lynda Collins died instantly when the tree fell on her.

Her husband Richard Collins said the death of his wife was a “one in a million chance” and had left him and their three children, Georgia (14), Robert (13) and Juliana (7) completely devastated.

The woman was walking to her home in Ballsbridge, a suburb of south Dublin,  in the late afternoon when the tree, located just outside the International School of Dublin, collapsed in the high winds.

According to witnesses interviewed at the scene, the woman may have heard the tree snapping as she crossed the road before it fell and knocked her unconscious.

"I ran outside and people were starting to run away," an onlooker told the press. "There was a car that the tree had landed on that was trying to back away. Then they realised that somebody was actually under the tree. I mean it landed on this girl," he told the Irish Independent last night.

"Everybody came running from all over trying to hold the tree in place and comfort the girl. It was a matter of trying to make sure the weight wasn't crushing her. It was too big for anybody to move and they were just trying to hold it in place."

Officers from the Dublin Fire Brigade prized the tree off the woman as paramedics battled valiantly to save her life; however, she died soon after arriving at Saint Vincent's Hospital, Irish police confirmed on Thursday night.

A cold front moving in from the Atlantic created gusts of up to 100 miles an hour on the west coast and elsewhere across the country.