An Accident on the Hawksbill Greenway

One of the nice amenities in the town of Luray is the Hawksbill Greenway.  I've posted about it before, and was planning to put up a short post today about the walk Tessie and I took yesterday morning.

However, there was news last week about a tragic accident on the Greenway, and I wanted to make a note of it.

A tree fell on June 1 and struck a pedestrian as she walked along the pathway.  Her name was Patricia Lee Shanks Davis; she was 66 and very active in the community, according to the Page News and Courier and her obituary.

The tree that fell was 30 inches in diameter and 80 feet tall.  Apparently the trunk snapped off at about four feet, and the tree fell across the creek and struck Ms. Shanks.  They're still trying to figure out what went wrong with the tree - I suspect a combination of stress from being undermined by the creek (it was on a section with a steep bank), and possibly the earthquake last year.

In any case, here's a note in honor of Ms. Shanks. I was very sorry to hear this.  There's a memorial web page up for her at http://www.forevermissed.com/pat-shanks.