This story from the New York Times today is one our own Department of Conservation and Recreation should take note of:  cute, scruffy young computer scientist out for a morning stroll in Central Park "is hit on the head and critically injured by a rotted-out tree branch that snapped under its own weight off a massive pin oak tree."

The reaction of his fellow New Yorkers is not surprising:

“I’d probably be more concerned about a pigeon doing something to me," said one.

“I’m more afraid of manholes," said another.

Of course, if the same thing happened in Boston, you'd get a similar reaction from the peanut gallery, with the addition of a few "what was the douchebag doing walking in the park anyway?"s and a "serves him right" or two.

I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen something like this here.  During my daily ride along the Charles forget dead tree limbs, we're talking whole dead trees. As you might imagine, I'm one of those people who writes and calls, and I've been hounding the DCR (with whom I have had good relations in the past) for two and a half years to absolutely no avail about one that's been dead for at least that long at a high-traffic intersection along the Charles River bike path...


As I rode by this morning I realized there were actually three dead or mostly dead trees in the space of a few hundred yards along this well-traveled portion of the path near the new work-out station.  I also noticed that each of the dead trees seemed strategically placed where a large overhanging dead limb could best fall on someone: over a park bench, above a water fountain on the main path, at the intersection of the main path and a pedestrian overpass.

In the years I have been riding under the ever more brittle large limbs of the deadest of the three trees, I have fantasized often about one falling on me, I have to admit, although after reading about that poor fellow in Central Park (who suffered "a gash in his skull, damaging his upper vertebrae and causing a partial lung collapse" — and he has yet to gain full consciousness) I'm not so sure it would be worth it. 

But it's probably the only way the ever-cash-strapped DCR will get around to taking care of the problem.