Posted on 04/13/2002 8:51:59 PM PDT by mrfixit514
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A woman who climbed 150 feet up a tree to protest a timber sale fell and died from her injures before rescuers could reach the remote site in the Mount Hood National Forest.
The timber sale she was protesting had been canceled three days before her death Friday, and the protesters expected to leave the area within a week.
It took rescue crews over two hours struggling up snow-clogged dirt roads to reach the tree-sitters' camp after fellow activists called rescuers, Clackamas County Sheriff's spokeswoman Angela Blanchard said.
The caller said the woman, identified as Beth O'Brien, 22, of Portland, was unconscious but still breathing, Blanchard said. But by the time rescue crews arrived at about 9:30 p.m., O'Brien was dead.
She had unhooked herself from one platform and was trying to reach another by a rope ladder when she fell, Blanchard said.
Sarah Wald of Cascadia Forest Alliance, which organized the demonstration, said protesters remained in the trees Saturday evening.
Ivan Maluski, a longtime Eagle Creek protester, said tree sitters were days away from leaving the site after a three-year vigil.
About four people take turns living year-round in tree platforms in the area, Maluski said. After the cancelation was announced Tuesday, protesters said they wanted to see a final signed contract before they pulled out.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., an opponent of the timber sale, announced Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service had reached an agreement to cancel the logging contract after an independent review determined the deal required significant modifications to prevent environmental harm.
At issue was the problem of blowdown, or trees not intended for logging being felled by winds on the edge of areas where cutting was planned. The Forest Service said tree sitters didn't influence the decision.
The Forest Service and the timber company, Vanport Manufacturing, agreed to cancel the deal, but tree sitters said they would remain until the final paperwork was signed.
Tree sitters live in plywood platforms attached to the upper limbs of trees slated for logging.
At least two others have fallen in the past year. In June, one man fell in the Eagle Creek area but refused treatment. In October, another fell in the Tillamook State Forest and suffered multiple broken bones.
Not to mention the agony of the live
trees that went into making her plywood.
Giant falls from sky. Village and all Inhabitants Destroyed.
Film at 11 . . .
Do the parents of these Einsteins even care that their son or daughter spends an entire year in a tree? If I even thought about mentioning the possibility of thinking about doing this to my parents my ass would be in a sling.
They had better sell her organs to pay for the emergency personnel's trip out there.
Trees are injured by these platflorm, and the by-products of these human parasites living off the trees like this.
Some of these trees are ancient Ents (from hobbit lore) and they wish to live private lives until they can become a more sane human's comfortable home or redwood lined sauna.
BTW, just how does one go about nominating someone for a Darwin Award?
And she'll be buried in a pine box.
This is reminiscent of what happened to me
as a youth in West Texas. I had been out
hunting on the mesquite-studded plains
near Amarillo, when I misjudged the time
of day and didn't get started for home until
the sun had already gone down.
Without a flashlight, the only way I could
navigate accurately was to follow the nearby
train tracks until they guided me home.
I was walking on the tracks over a bridge when
I slipped and fell. I managed to grab ahold of
the side of the tracks and prevented myself from
falling any further. Too battered and weak to
pull myself back up onto the road bed, I hung
there all night.
When the dawn began to break, I was able to
look down beneath my dangling boots and see
that the ground was only four inches below my
feet! It made me so mad, I hung there for the
rest of the day, just out of spite.
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