San Francisco Sued Because Guy Got Hit in the Head With Giant Pine Cone – IOTW Report

San Francisco Sued Because Guy Got Hit in the Head With Giant Pine Cone

Newser

Sean Mace—on vacation after losing his job in Washington—was napping under some trees in a San Francisco park while waiting to watch the Blue Angels perform when his skull was crushed by a falling

Bunya pine seed pods, such as the one that severely injured Sean Mace, can get very large, as seen in this photo by Rodmunch99.

16-pound pine cone, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The accident happened in October 2014, and Mace filed suit against the park and a number of government agencies last month, according to an announcement from his lawyer Monday. Mace is seeking $5 million in damages.

The pine cone that hit Mace came from a bunya pine tree—also known as an Araucaria bidwillii tree or a false monkey puzzle tree—whose seed pods can weigh up to 40 pounds, the Chronicle reports. Johnson tells NBC it was like getting hit by a falling bowling ball. The lawsuit claims San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park should have had fences and warning signs—which it has installed since the accident—to keep park visitors safe. Johnson tells theChronicle Mace has PTSD and depression from the incident. “He’s afraid to go outside at this point because he’s afraid something is going to hit him in the head,”

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It’s not funny. The dude’s head permanently smells like car freshener.

33 Comments on San Francisco Sued Because Guy Got Hit in the Head With Giant Pine Cone

  1. How’s that for a cone of silence?
    So, he fell asleep under a tree with seed cones the size of bowling balls, didn’t he look up before closing his eyes?
    Sir Isaac he ain’t.

  2. This is what happens when idiots expect Big Daddy Gov’t to take care of them from cradle to grave. Even nature has to be subsidized!

    Interesting that the minute he lost his job in Washington, he immediately went to hippie land. Also, how is it that such glaring grammatical errors can appear in a ‘professional’ article? “He found himself what he thought…”

    Oh, and how come the sign warning people about the seed pods is only in English and portrays a male stick figure? That is NOT inclusive for all languages and gender identities, especially in California…

  3. Around here we have these Osage Orange tress, easily found near hedge rows and roads, they’re dropping Hedge Apples now and they’re big. Also the Black Walnuts are dropping and they’ll smash your windshield just as easily.

    Stuff does fall from the sky, shit happens.

  4. Three great facts about Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera) trees:

    1) The apples, when sliced down and left in strategic areas, keep spiders away; 2) Osage orange wood is the best fire wood, highest in BTU content, and 3) an Osage orange branch of sufficient length and diameter can beat the snot out of an asshole progressive with great ease.

  5. Bill Whittle said it well recently in his “It’s the Steel” Afterburner segment–America wasn’t designed to be safe. it was designed to be free. Safety is an illusion created to protect children until they are mature enough to understand that the world is not safe.

    This idiot provides another example that Progressives don’t want to grow up.

    Also, please note, he was trying to watch the Blue Angels show for free.

  6. Meerkat,

    Your forgetting that this is San Fran and there is no God unless you are referring to the State. The State has all power and is responsible for everything up to and including sex change reassignment surgeries if need be.

  7. I side with the plaintiff this time. The city should have at least posted warning signs around the area. The guy sound a bit of a dork for catching a nap under a tree but I’ll bet few of us check a tree for killer cones before we catch 40 winks. I also imagine that the size of these cones as well as thoughts about what would happen if one of them dropped on some poor boob has come up a lot by park/city workers over the years. You can’t protect against everything but putting up a few signs is pretty much a no-brainer.

  8. And if they did throw up a few signs, as you suggest, they’d be sued (and lose) when it was decided by a Lefty judge or a jury of your “peers” that there weren’t enough of them, or that they weren’t printed in Spanish, or that there wasn’t a braille option, and so on, and so on. And so on.

    Shit happens. It’s called life. If you trip off your own front stair and dent your noggin, all you get is a dented noggin, but if you fall and dent your head on MY front stair, you get my house?

    I’m sick of this shit.

    Think about it. Who is responsible for you? The answer used to be “you”.

    So if I get hit today by an asteroid, can I sue NASA for not warning me? Or can I sue Islam, since NASA is a Muslim outreach program now, according to the Shithead in Chief?

    Stop the world. I want off.

  9. Haven thought of Osage Orange for years Old Oaks. They sure do get large.
    One year I thinly sliced the Osage Orange fruit and oven dried till near petrified, the slices to make mod flowers. In the early 70’s it was the rage of former city dwellers when we moved to rural suburbia. They sure do stink up the house and oven.

  10. Why would you sit under a tree that has stuff hanging from it? Especially mutant pine cones!

    Would anyone sit under a tree that has a hundred birds in it ?

    Why don’t they just make a forest of signs and cut down the trees?
    Even then, someone will tell you, “Oh I didn’t see any sign” and a judge would side with that person.

    No one is responsible for the tree’s actions. He may as well sue it for providing too much shade and making him sleepy.

  11. Hi Chief. Actually putting up a few signs would probably have stopped this lawsuit in it’s tracks. It’s not an unreasonable action and all the city has to show is that they made a reasonable attempt to warn the people of the danger. Sort of like a stop sign or a beware falling rocks sign. I agree that the lack of personal responsibility these days is abysmal. Unfortunately without across the board tort reform the situation is unlikely to change especially since so many people are being taught that a lawsuit is the road to easy street.

  12. The tree in question is clearly a foreign species, planted illegally. It was to be deported, but locals argued it had planted roots and was a part of the larger community. The cones are extended family just trying to make their way in a City that usually hugs trees. If there was greater opportunity for foreign trees the cones would move up and not fall to the bottom. My how the natives turn nasty.

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