Angelina Lin, Google engineer killed by falling branch while hiking Tuolune Grove in Yosemite National Park in freak accident as rangers decline to issue press release over woman’s death.
A 29-year-old Google software engineer was killed in a freak accident after she was struck by a falling tree branch while hiking at Yosemite National Park earlier this month.
Angela Lin, who worked as a software engineer for about six years at Salesforce and then Google, was hiking on July 19 with her boyfriend and two friends on a trail that wound through the Tuolumne Grove of towering sequoias, which the group had momentarily stopped to admire.
Moments later, several branches from one of the tourist drawing trees came tumbling down, fatally striking Lin on the head, according to her boyfriend, David Hua.
Potential dangers of hiking Yosemite National Park
‘Two to three seconds later, branches fell out of the sky,’ Hua told SFGate. ‘One big branch struck Angela, and then there were a bunch of smaller ones directly behind me.’
Hua said Lin was sprawled on the ground facing up with blood gushing from her head.
Despite efforts to get Lin to hospital, the 29 year old Google engineer hailing from the Bay Area, California was declared dead at the scene.
‘It was just unimaginable that something like this could occur,’ Hua told SFGate. ‘On such a popular trail, too.’
The episode led to Tuolomne Grove being closed to the public for a week.
Not immediately clear whether there are signs at the national park warning hikers of the potential pitfalls of the area, including that of falling branches in the wilderness that could potentially strike unwitting hikers.
Commented one individual on a thread on Reddit, ‘It hits so so hard because they were doing nothing wrong or careless… Life can be so cruel.’
While another responded, ‘Makes you think about how fragile life is and how easily it can be taken away by freak incidents.’
Although the grove has reopened, the park service hasn’t issued a press release on Lin’s death, while the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office could not be reached for comment.
The lack of communication ultimately led to Lin’s boyfriend reaching out to media.
Lin’s death continues to remain under investigation.
