Tough stuff. I hope his son pulls through OK. I can’t imagine going camping and having you dad die on the trip.
When setting up camp, after you find a flat spot for your tent, look up to check what the trees look like. If there’s a dead branch or it looks unstable, move your tent.
I’ve had a perfectly healthy looking tree fall on my camp chair a few seconds after I got up.
I’ve also seen a huge tree in the middle of a state campground cracked in half and still standing. We caution taped around the drop zone and notified camp staff. We were camping during a blizzard and they were too busy moving snow to come drop the tree.
As a 10 year old, my family went on a cross country trip with a pop up camper. It was a great time.
One morning, before we set out for the next state and campsite, I went into the modern restroom to take one last pee before we hit the road.
A huge tree branch came crashing down in front of the restroom, for no reason. Two seconds earlier and I wouldn’t be relating this tale.
Enjoy every sandwich.
Weird things happen in the forest. I was backpacking in high school with some friends, and one night we heard a tremendous explosion, scared the living hell out of all of us. Then - silence. I swear it was like X-files. Next day, about a half mile down the trail a fresh redwood tree last across the trail, broken clean in half about twenty feet up. The tree must have originally been a hundred feet tall, it was huge and we couldn't climb over it, we had to walk around the stub of the trunk. I was told later that water balance is critical and a big tree is so many tons that they can explode at a weak spot. There was no wind day or night, it was summer heat. And it was very creepy. Literally no visible cause.