Yes, but more in tune with the season this time.
Posted on 10/10/2002 12:23:47 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
CORRALITOS, Calif.(AP) - A man with the environmental activist group Earth First! has died after a 50-foot fall from a redwood tree in which he'd lived for several weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It's not the falling.
It's that sudden stopping that always gets ya.
Tree-sitter dead after fall from tree in Corralitos
The Associated Press
Published 11:35 a.m. PDT Thursday, October 10, 2002
CORRALITOS, Calif.(AP) - A man with the environmental activist group Earth First!
has died after a 50-foot fall from a redwood tree in which he'd lived for several weeks.
Rescue personnel were called to the scene of a logging operation in the Ramsey Gulch
area about 20-miles south of San Jose on Tuesday night after loggers heard moans
coming from the area where a group of tree-sitters has been camped since August, the
group said. It was unclear how long the injured man had been on the ground.
It took workers a half-hour to hike to the scene. The man, who was believed to have a
broken arm and leg, was transported by helicopter to a San Jose hospital.
The Santa Clara County Coroner's Office confirmed Thursday morning the man was
dead, but said he had not been identified.
Earth First! said the man had been sitting on a platform in the tree for several weeks.
Apparently he had spent time in forests of Northern California, but the group said he
never had tree sat before.
Earth First! activists have protested logging operations by San Jose-based Redwood
Empire in the Ramsey Gulch area for more than two years. Although protesters and the
logging company have been at odds at times, Redwood Empire issued a statement
Wednesday saying its employees were saddened by the death.
Tree sitters can spend months camped on platforms in old-growth trees, hoping to call
attention to the environmental effects of logging. In perhaps the most famous incident,
Julia "Butterfly" Hill spent two years 180 feet up a 1,000-foot redwood in Northern
California to save it from being cut down for lumber.
She came down in 1999 after Pacific Lumber Co. agreed to leave the tree standing in
return for $50,000 to make up for lost logging revenue.
17-Apr-2002
Tree sitter dies in platform fall
by: Andrew Kramer and Cascadia Forest Alliance
Oregon, Unites States: Beth O'Brien, a tree sitter with the Cascadia Forest Alliance, died after falling 150 feet from a tree she
was trying to protect from logging in the Mount Hood National Forest east of Portland, Oregon. In a sad twist, the sale of timber
the woman was protesting had been cancelled three days before her death on 12 April.
Local rescue crews struggled up snow-clogged dirt roads to reach the tree sitters' camp in the Eagle Creek wilderness area after a
fellow activist called for help from a cell phone at about 7.00 pm, Clackamas County Sheriff's spokeswoman Angela Blanchard
said.
The caller said the woman, who authorities did not immediately identify, was badly hurt and unconscious but still breathing,
Blanchard said. By the time rescue crews arrived at about 9.30 pm, the woman was dead, said Blanchard.
Ivan Maluski, a spokesman for the American Lands Alliance, a group involved in protesting the now-cancelled Eagle Creek sale,
said tree sitters were days away from leaving the site after a three-year vigil.
"People literally are waiting for the ink to dry (on the cancellation deal). Probably we're going to be packing up and leaving this
week, assuming it is signed," Maluski said.
At a press conference on 13 April, a spokesperson from the Cascadia Forest Alliance said that they “view Beth's death in a
tradition of courageous action to defend life that extends through decades of nonviolent protest in the US and abroad.”
A candlelight vigil was held in Beth's memory at Mt. Tabor City Park on 14 April at sunset.
Yes, but more in tune with the season this time.
So much for safety harnesses heh?
Redwoods are evergreen.
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