Central Park horror leaves Google engineer Blair-Goldensohn in coma

Source: NY Daily News

A Google genius was in a coma Wednesday night after a rotting branch snapped off a tree in Central Park and smashed him in the head.

Sasha Blair-Goldensohn was walking to work through the park when a 100-pound limb came crashing from a massive pin oak tree near W. 63rd St.

The 33-year-old computer engineer and father of two was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center after the 8 a.m. accident and was in intensive care.

"I'm not worried about Sasha because he has IQ to spare," uncle Marty Goldensohn told the Daily News while keeping vigil at the hospital Wednesday night.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/30/2009-07-30_horror_in_park_fells_dad_of_2_100lb_limb_crashes_onto_google_engineer.html

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Sasha Blair-Goldensohn

I hope he recovers. What a shame. In my area last week a teenager was killed by a falling limb at a camp in WV.

I hope he recovers.

After googling, it looks like a logging/forestry term. Thanks.

or prune them to death. We have potentially beautiful street trees in much of Los Angeles, and they get massively overpruned, usually just at the start of summer, and never recover. Businesses do it to the landscape trees in their parking lots that they are required to plant per city regulations - neglect or abuse them so badly they just die.

Sigh.

True arborists who understand how and WHEN to prune are apparently a dying breed.

enough to provide shade

and cultivated to be pruned like that (why, I don't know. Why do people select for the dog types they do?). I think they're London Plane Trees.

I've seen one specimen of an unpruned one in a cemetery south of San Francisco. Left to its own genes, it grows long kinked branches that have a tendency to fall off. I don't like either the pruned or unpruned versions, but they apparently hold up to city air pollution quite well.

Thank goodness. Good luck, Sasha.

fragil our heads are.:(

The Google genius struck in the head by a massive Central Park tree branch is showing signs of improvement, relatives said Thursday.

After spending several hours in a coma, Sasha Blair-Goldensohn responded to commands to open his eyes and squeeze a hand.

"He's slowing improving," Blair-Goldensohn's mom, Gwenda Blair said. "We think that he's going to be okay."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/30/2009-07-30_google_genius.html#ixzz0Mn2WnrRT