Angela Lin loved nature, swing dancing and singing.

On the afternoon of July 19, a 29-year-old Google software engineer named Angela Lin was doing one of the things she loved most — hiking in Yosemite National Park. With her boyfriend and two friends, Lin had been admiring giant sequoias along the paved trail through Tuolumne Grove, about a mile from the parking lot, when there was a loud cracking sound from above.

“Two to three seconds later, branches fell out of the sky,” Lin’s boyfriend David Hua told SFGATE. “One big branch struck Angela, and then there were a bunch of smaller ones directly behind me.”

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Hua had closed his eyes as the branches came down, and when he reopened them, he saw Lin on the ground face up, with blood pooling around her head. Hua called 911 and performed CPR until a park ranger arrived and took over, he said, and soon an ambulance showed up. But Lin was never placed inside. He said emergency personnel later told him that the falling branch likely killed his girlfriend instantly.  

“It was just unimaginable that something like this could occur,” Hua said, his voice unsteady over the phone. “On such a popular trail, too.”

A hiking path runs through the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias via the Tuolumne Grove Trail, in Yosemite National Park, Calif.

For about a week after Lin’s death, the National Park Service closed Tuolumne Grove to visitors, and tour guides from Echo Adventure Cooperative observed plainclothes officers on the scene, according to Elisabeth Barton, a founding member of the co-op. 

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Although the grove has reopened, the park service hasn’t issued a press release on Lin’s death, and the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office could not be reached for comment. Yosemite public affairs officer Scott Gediman did provide a short statement. 

“The incident remains under investigation,” Gediman told SFGATE. “There is no further information available.”

Lin’s grieving loved ones haven’t been able to learn much else from the park service, Hua said, and the frustrating lack of communication was what prompted him to reach out to the media.

“We are seeking more information from the park service regarding this incident, especially around trail safety, maintenance and awareness of problematic trees on........

© SFGate