Angela Lin: Google Engineer Tragically Dies in Freak Accident While Hiking with Boyfriend at Yosemite National Park

A 29-year-old software engineer from Google was killed her life in a freak accident at Yosemite National Park earlier this month when a massive branch from a giant sequoia tree fell and hit her on the head.

Angela Lin, a software engineer with nearly six years of experience at Salesforce and later Google, was hiking on July 19 with her boyfriend and two other friends along a trail that passed through the Tuolumne Grove, known for its towering sequoias. Suddenly, a loud cracking noise was heard from above — and within a few seconds, multiple branches from one of the enormous trees came crashing down, according to Lin’s boyfriend, David Hua.

Tragic Death

“One big branch struck Angela, and then there were a bunch of smaller ones directly behind me,” Hua told SFGate. Hua said that as the branches came crashing down, he instantly shut his eyes — and when he opened them again, he saw Lin lying on her back, blood pooling around her head.

“It was just unimaginable that something like this could occur,” Hua said over the phone with a shaky voice, according to SFGate.

“On such a popular trail, too.”

After Lin’s death, Tuolumne Grove—the area where she and her group had been hiking—was closed to the public for nearly a week.

Scott Gediman, Yosemite’s public affairs officer, told SFGate that the incident remains under investigation.

Hua shared that Lin’s family and friends have struggled to get additional information from the park service, and their growing frustration has led them to speak out through 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 popular trails, and future prevention of similar incidents,” Hua said.

Out of the Blue

Traumatized bystanders have also been desperately seeking updates about Lin, with one person even creating a Reddit thread titled “Tuolumne Grove Incident 7/19” in an effort to learn if she had survived.

“I am a tourist, but was on the scene of an extremely tragic freak accident in the area trying to provide [aid], and it has been haunting me. I can’t stop thinking about it and can’t find any news articles updating about the situation,” the user wrote in a post on the Reddit thread.

“It hits so so hard because they were doing nothing wrong or careless… Life can be so cruel.”

Although uncommon, Yosemite has seen several tragic fatal accidents over the years. Last summer, college student Grace Rohloff tragically fell 200 feet to her death from the Half Dome cables during a storm, moments after telling her father, “Dad, my shoes are so slippery.”

In October of the same year, 22-year-old Australian hiker Harry Partington was fatally crushed by a falling tree while on the park’s Four Mile Trail, which links Yosemite Valley and Glacier Point.

Back in August 2015, two high school students lost their lives when an oak tree branch fell on their tent while they were sleeping.