Anyways moving forward at one point we arranged for the entire family to go and get our years firewood. Up the mountain we went and soon enough we encountered a standing dead pine of quite good size. The interesting thing when falling trees is that a dead tree becomes quite brittle and when it falls it has the capacity to shatter and send shrapnel flying at quite a dangerous velocity.

I think you can all see where this is going, city slickers who think they know what they are doing check, youthful exuberance check.

So it came time to commit the act and bring the old tree down, looking at the incline of the hill the tree was on and the surrounding environment it was immediately clear to both me and my brother that the tree would have to be felled so it would fall onto the road, Naturally me and my brother fell back to a distance that would be quite safe if the tree shattered. Sadly my cousins did not share our knowledge and wanted to be real close so they could watch the spectacle of the tree falling. At once both me and my brother warned our cousins that it was dangerous and they should stand back. Of course they did not listen. Getting frantic as by this point the tree was about to fall we tried ordering them into a safer location... no go apparently years of living in the city made them experts at tree falling, Finally the tree began to fall right towards us, or rather our cousins... desperate me and my brother screamed for our cousins to run for there lives... still no reaction but you can bet that when the tree fell and exploded into many smaller parts they tried to run. Other than some small cuts and a badly bruised ego by some miracle no one was hurt. After that my dad refused to allow anyone from that family to "help" us gather firewood...

Submitted on 09/28/2008

Submitted by: Island Jon Wills
Reference: na

Copyright © 2008 DarwinAwards.com

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Shrapnel of any flavor can be potentially lethal! Thanks, Jon!

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
That story would have made a fine half-hour TV episode! I do rather like the mild arrogance and sense of invincibility of your city cousins! SURELY they cannot be as provincial as YOUR family!!! Excellent story, Island Jon! Thanks for sharing!

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