Canadian man killed by falling tree in Olympic National Park

Phil Helsel
·1 min read
1

A Canadian man died this week while camping at Olympic National Park in Washington state, officials said.

Thomas Bernier-Villeneuve, 34, died after a tree fell on his tent at Elk Lake, a remote wilderness campsite in the almost 900,000-acre park west of Seattle, park officials said.

The National Park Service was notified Tuesday about the death and reached the site by helicopter Wednesday morning, it said in a statement Thursday.

The body was turned over to the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.

Bernier-Villeneuve was visiting the park from Montreal, Quebec, with his hiking partner, who reported the incident via inReach, a satellite communications device, a park spokeswoman said.

Other hikers got to the scene within 20 minutes of the incident and helped the hiking partner continue to relay information through inReach, the spokeswoman said.

The National Park Service is investigating the incident and will attempt to determine why the tree fell.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com