Who's afraid of falling coconuts?

[peterfe]

Not I, I thought, having spent an average of about 40-50 minutes a day for a year walking in the coconut groves behind our house, and only having ever heard one coconut fall, about 20 metres away. There are about 150-200 trees, by the way. But then this morning - plop! One fell down just one metre in front of me! Even though the chances of being hit were no doubt equally minute before and after that event, being human, I completed my walk in an area without coconut trees.

Safely back home, I searched for "killed by falling coconuts", and it seems that most people who are hit get (often serious) injuries, but don't normally die. But the chances of getting hit are very small, which fits in with my experience of only ever having heard one (now two!) coconuts fall in about 300 or so hours of walking. But having one of those heavy things plop down from a great height only one metre in front of you makes you think...

Anybody known anyone who's been hit by a falling coconut? Do you happily walk under coconut trees, or avoid them if possible? 

[Joey G]

Just asked wife who grew up on copra farm... knows of people who have died from falling coconuts... not many, but more than 1 over 10 years when she was a kid. But yeah, talk about a random way to go. Surprisingly she knew of no one who died climbing... a few have fallen, including her when she was 6.

[Mike J]

Many years back my wife and I stayed a few days at a resort.  I was laying down in a hammock that was stretched between two tall coconut palms.  I heard and big thump and looked over my shoulder to see where a coconut had hit the ground.   We now live here and have a number coconut palms on our lot.  One of those was a tall palm, maybe 35-40 feet tall.  We had it cut down for safety reasons, the others are much shorter where we can cut the nuts down using a folding ladder, one is actually a dwarf and the nuts are only about chest high, maybe a bit higher.  I love the looks of a tall palm but each time I hired someone to climb it to drop nuts and trim fronds I feared for their safety.   So no more tall palms for us. 

[BC57]

57 minutes ago, peterfe said:

Not I, I thought, having spent an average of about 40-50 minutes a day for a year walking in the coconut groves behind our house, and only having ever heard one coconut fall, about 20 metres away. There are about 150-200 trees, by the way. But then this morning - plop! One fell down just one metre in front of me! Even though the chances of being hit were no doubt equally minute before and after that event, being human, I completed my walk in an area without coconut trees.

Safely back home, I searched for "killed by falling coconuts", and it seems that most people who are hit get (often serious) injuries, but don't normally die. But the chances of getting hit are very small, which fits in with my experience of only ever having heard one (now two!) coconuts fall in about 300 or so hours of walking. But having one of those heavy things plop down from a great height only one metre in front of you makes you think...

Anybody known anyone who's been hit by a falling coconut? Do you happily walk under coconut trees, or avoid them if possible? 

I'm only concerned because our neighbors tree hangs over our fence just enough where the coconuts land on our property so when the family kids are over playing this was a huge concern until we talked to the neighbor and we hired a guy to cut it down so problem was solved. The other concern was if that tree ever blew over it would wipe out our block wall and hit our roof.

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, peterfe said:

Anybody known anyone who's been hit by a falling coconut? Do you happily walk under coconut trees, or avoid them if possible? 

Well...sort of... Our car was hit by a falling coconut while we were driving on a major highway. It hit the headlight cover (and damaged the inside reflector) then bounced up to the windshield and scared the s*** out of both of us. Fortunately, it did not break the windshield... I never walk below coconut palms if there is any wind, but they can drop at any time...

[peterfe]

51 minutes ago, Tommy T. said:

I never walk below coconut palms if there is any wind, but they can drop at any time...

There was no wind at all, but they are harvesting them at this time, which presumably means they're more likely to fall down by themselves. I think I'll take it as an omen - not sure if I believe in omens, but there's no point in tempting fate, when there are other places to walk without coconut trees. Anyway, this is not a good time to get even a minor injury, if it means you have to go to hospital where both patients and clinicians may have Covid-19.

I suppose it's a bit like other slight risks we take in life. Like if I'd been happily riding a motorbike (sensibly) along a short stretch of road with little traffic for a year, and nothing had happened. Then suddenly because of some maniac on the road, I'm only one second away from serious injury or death. So then you start thinking a lot... 

[jimeve]

We have about 5 dwarf coconut trees, had more but cut them down. Even dwarf trees grow to 10 meters tall. I can reach those nuts with an extension ladder but the wife insist to get a local to climb, I have vertigo so climbing is a no go for me. Heard some coco nuts falling down over a few years.

[Tommy T.]

1 minute ago, peterfe said:

I suppose it's a bit like other slight risks we take in life. Like if I'd been happily riding a motorbike (sensibly) along a short stretch of road with little traffic for a year, and nothing had happened. Then suddenly because of some maniac on the road, I'm only one second away from serious injury or death. So then you start thinking a lot.

Yup... exactly... I thought I was truly immortal until I reached about 40 years of age... Then I realized the warranty had run out and I was on my own and would have to take care of myself rather than rely on my body to take care of me...

[Tommy T.]

15 minutes ago, jimeve said:

We have about 5 dwarf coconut trees, had more but cut them down. Even dwarf trees grow to 10 meters tall. I can reach those nuts with an extension ladder but the wife insist to get a local to climb, I have vertigo so climbing is a no go for me. Heard some coco nuts falling down over a few years.

Better to just rig a bottle below a coconut stem to collect the sweet sap and make the coco wine!

Edited August 3, 2020 by Tommy T.

[Snowy79]

I usually jog on White beach, Boracay most days and run along the water's edge but a couple of weeks ago the tide was a bit high so I had no choice but to run along the tree line. There's a good 2km of coconut trees lining the beach and as I was approaching Willy's rock one landed just in front of me, it made a good old thump as it hit the beach. Enough of a thump for a group about 20ft away to turn around. Looking up the tree was at least 40ft high and the coconut was larger than my head.  I think if it hit me I doubt I'd have survived judging by the imprint in the sand.