Give me a home among the gum trees.

[gemfyre]

Tree falls on family car and tent and kills 4 year old.

TRAGEDY!! HORROR!!

And here I thought it was common knowledge not to set up tents under gum trees because they're notorious for dropping branches.

Nope, large investigation. CALM will check out (and probably remove) "suspect" trees. They seem to forget the fact that GUM TREES DROP BRANCHES ALL THE TIME!! Let's get rid of all the fucking gum trees eh?

God people are stupid.

Comments

[dead-corvette.livejournal.com]

that really is dumb. i bet if an adult had died they would have brought it up.

wow that sounded really insensitive :D

ps: if you have adsl go check out my latest post, it has birds in it!

[roshy.livejournal.com]

I honestly had no idea that gum trees dropped branches.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Ah. Now you do. ;)

Those lovely white gums that line the road in Kings Park are a liability for the park. They keep a hawk eye on them.

[travel-bug.livejournal.com]

I consider myself of above average intelligence and I had no idea that gum tress dropped branches. Perhaps the environmentalist should advertise this to lay people a bit more and these kind of tragedies wouldn't happen. I'm a Psychologist and I don't expect the average person to know everything about psychology and I also don't think they are stupid for not knowing. Perhaps something to think about.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

It's just advice that appears in most of the camping/survival guides I've seen.

I'd hope that anyone camping would know.

[morningmist83.livejournal.com]

Ahh I have sweet gum trees in my yard. Three HUGE old ones that somewhat hang over our house. Stupid fuckers drop branches in the spring when they get all heavy...they are stupid trees...and I hate those damned sweet gum balls. *death to sweet gum balls* they are really pokey and hurt if you step on them barefoot. OWWWW.

I'm sorry.

This has absolutely nothing to do with your post. But I just felt like ranting about trees. *molests you to make up for her spam*

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

W00hoo!! :p

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Hell yes they do. We had this fairly large gum tree near our old apartment that dropped branches during every monsoon storm, very glad we never had to park near it.

Incidentally, my uncle was very surprised when I called them gum trees, apparently I'm the only American he's ever heard refer to them that way. Over here, they're always referred to as eucalyptus.

[gemfyre.livejournal.com]

Gum is so much easier to write. :)

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Too bad we already had two different kinds of gum tree here, both of them regional: Liquidambar styraciflua Sweet Gum and Nyssa sylvatica Black Gum. So by the time eucalypts were being introduced, they couldn't use "gum tree" for that, too.

[morningglorymlp.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it's okay because they're just useless trees. So what if a couple of deadly gum trees are cut down?

*rolls eyes*

I think they need to drop a few more branches on people. Then maybe they'd get some sense knocked into them.

[firvulag.livejournal.com]

can we start with the decision makers in certain 'environmental' groups and some in government agencies?

[summerglow.livejournal.com]

gah! idiots!

[shadowshifter.livejournal.com]

you dont have kids so you can scream TRAGEDY! HORROR! and feel righteously annoyed at people who are stupid enough to set up under a gum tree.

i feel sorry for the parents of said 4yo.

the knowledge may not be as common as you think and i dont know how many people would bring camping books out camping with them, maybe first aid books or the like, n woulda thought the gum tree was nice convenient shade. i didnt know gum trees consistently fropped branches til i met Josh n he told me.

as for investigation, its better to say theye looking into it than rile public opinion against gum trees by smugly saying everyone should know better regardless of whether they should or not. i mean look how uncommon common sense is :P

[lotus79.livejournal.com]

I thought it was common sense not to pitch a tent under any tree... but maybe I was told gum trees and I forgot. Either way...