And if a tree in a municipal park were in danger of shedding a limb, the park managers would likely know about it and act on it to remove the limb before any damage takes place, as they should have done in this case.
how? check their limb-cams? check the monitoring stations that they put on every branch of every tree? check with the rangers that climb ladders and check every tree in the bay area?
get real. accidents happen. it’s no one’s fault, that’s why it’s an accident.
Well if they are good park keepers, they will keep an eye on things.
i think you underestimate the difficulty of what you’re asking for. ‘park rangers should just know’ has an element of magical omniscience to it that doesn’t exist in the real world.
I think you are under-estimating how well a good woodland manager works. Regardless of hypotheticals however, in THIS CASE, where these deadly seed pods are a known danger, then they should be managed.
I dunno, it seems ‘pine cones fall off trees and these ones are fucking huge, maybe we should tell people to be careful’ should be under their purview.
You’re trying to derail this into a discussion about how it’s impossible to prevent windfall branches. But that’s not relevant to the issue at hand. Windfall branches are an inherent danger of trees, but a rare one, and one that we have collectively decided is worth the pleasure of having trees around. Falling bowling-ball cones are not an inherent danger of trees, but a well-documented property of a single type of tree, which should not have been deliberately planted in an urban park on the other side of the world from its native range.
And apart from anything else, he’s suing. Doesn’t mean he’s going to get anything. If it goes to court, it’ll be decided whether or not anyone was negligible and if not, he won’t get anything. I suspect though that if it was known these seed pods were a thing, someone will be held responsible for not removing them in a timely manner.
side topic: do these large pinecones contain edible nuts?
edit: found the answer
yum, i want some Bunya nuts!
branches and cones falling off trees seem like the same sort of thing to me. but hey, keep on pushing for a nanny state to keep us safe from everything, where no one is responsible for themselves.
I agree that US medical care (or lack of) is a problem, but this doesn’t seem to me to make a difference as to whether or not the cause of the incident may have been negligence. How badly one feels they need compensation does not change the degree of fault.
I am still of the opinion that a park in an urban setting that drops 16lb pine cones should have warnings. The fact that they have warning up now, after this incident… to me says they are culpable. Now, that they have warnings, anyone that gets beaned, sure, they’re on their own, but this guy and his injuries are the city/state/park-systems fault because they failed to warn him.
Sure, but you shouldn’t have to expect that in California.
How about this for responsibility: If you plant a very tall tree from not here that also drops bowlingball sized cones half the year, and you plant it in a park, then it’s your personal responsibility to put up a warning or something so that you’re not liable for anyone getting their skull fractured when one of those bowlingball cones falls on their head.
Is it my personal responsibility to know every goddamn tree in the world that might possibly grow where I am, in all places and at all times? Or should I have a reasonable expectation that if someone plants a particularly dangerous tree that they take personal responsibility for bad stuff happening when people get injured by non-obvious, relatively extreme risks presented by this tree.
In other words, am I personally responsible for being the victim of a hidden booby trap? Or is the one who set the trap responsible? Because if you’re saying it’s me, then you can fuck right off, and go live somewhere in magic land where nobody’s responsible for negligence.
Sorry there are managers for every piece of property that is not abandoned, including every public park. If there is a question they call in an arborist. But more likely the managers can do a pretty good estimate of the health of a tree and contract someone to take out a sick one and hopefully plant a replacement.
These injuries were horrific. The city planted the trees long ago and did nothing about them. This is a vetran/gov employee suing. This case is probably pretty close to cooked and the questions here are the amount and what the city is going to do with those trees. Seriously this case has happened - it’s in the public record - the next case looks like negligence.
Yes. This is something that a parks department that is doing its job will do.
Full disclosure: I am a friend of Sasha Blair-Goldensohn. http://nypost.com/2013/06/02/victims-of-falling-tree-limbs-in-central-park-get-big-settlements/
FYI: No one has ever, ever made an intelligent or convincing argument when using the term “nanny state.”
I think thats a green beehive, i’ve never seen the pine with that size ever.
Yeah, here I never thought I’d be going to SFO to wrestle the 900lb. squirrels and L.12 Bark Beetles for the bunya pine nuts, but that’s the new Gyffilero Now Exam, so…
Now -that’s- a drop camera.
Of course if I live through it I’m suing the rope testers and calcium additive makers for making that the one possible future.
They’re hard to get out and kinda bland. Not really worth it.
Rubbish I am sitting safely in my house and I am perfectly o
