LAKEWOOD, Wash. — A tree service worker was killed Saturday afternoon while trying to fell a dead tree in Lakewood, authorities and neighbors said.
The accident occurred about noon in the 11300 block of Tower Road Southwest, a residential area that is heavily forested.
The man, later identified by the Pierce County Medical Examiner's Office as Robin Ruel Jr., 42, was working about 50 feet up a 90-foot tree at the time, according to West Pierce Fire & Rescue spokeswoman Hallie McCurdy. The top half of the tree was attached to a crane.
The man was pronounced dead on scene. Fire crews brought his body down to ground level.
When the worker severed the top 40-foot section of the tree, it swung back toward him and pinned him against the still-standing section to which he was attached.
The medical examiner's office is still determining Ruel's cause of death.
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