A peaceful hike among Yosemite's towering sequoias turned tragic when a Google engineer was fatally struck by a falling tree branch. Angela Lin, 29, was killed while hiking with her boyfriend and two friends in Yosemite's famed Tuolumne Grove on July 19, per SFGate. She was nearly a mile along the paved trail admiring sequoias when large branches snapped off overhead. According to her boyfriend, Lin was struck and likely died instantly; emergency responders arrived quickly, but she never regained consciousness.
The National Park Service closed the trail for a week but has released little information, with the case still under investigation, leaving Lin's family and friends to press for more transparency. "We are seeking more information... especially around trail safety, maintenance and awareness of problematic trees," Lin's boyfriend, David Hua, tells SFGate. "It was just unimaginable that something like this could occur. On such a popular trail, too." Though incidents like this are rare in Yosemite, an Australian hiker was killed by a falling tree on the Four Mile trail in October. Two high school students were also killed when a tree limb fell on their tent in the Upper Pines Campground in 2015.
What sets Lin's death apart is its randomness: no wind, clear skies, and a careful hiker on a well-trodden path. "It hits so so hard because they were doing nothing wrong or careless," a witness to the incident later wrote on Reddit, noting the "extremely tragic freak accident ... has been haunting me." Lin, remembered as "whip-smart" and warm by friends and colleagues, was a Bay Area native with degrees from UC Berkeley and UT Austin, and worked at both Salesforce and Google. Google issued a statement mourning the loss of "a loved and respected member of our team."
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