JOYCE — A Quilcene logger who died when he was struck by a falling treetop Wednesday near Joyce was remembered by his employer as a man who “liked to help people.”
Scott Perkins, 49, “loved to fish and he loved to crab, and he was always sharing his crab or his clams or his salmon with people,” said Jim Bower on Thursday.
Perkins was working for Bower’s logging company when he was killed as he cut an alder during a state Department of Natural Resources harvest.
“He used to bring me stuff once in awhile,” said Bower, who employed Perkins as a faller.
Broken top
Perkins died Wednesday “when a little alder snag that had a broken top came down,” said Bower, owner of the Jim H Bower Logging Co. of Port Angeles.
Brian King, chief criminal deputy for the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, said, “As far as our investigation is concerned, it was accidental.”
Perkins’ partner called dispatchers at about 10 a.m. after he hadn’t heard Perkins’ chain saw on a logging site west of Sadie Creek just off state Highway 112 near Milepost 42, King said.
The partner found Perkins with no pulse and started CPR, according to King, but Perkins was dead when firefighters and law enforcement arrived.
Because Perkins was at the bottom of a steep ravine, firefighters from District Nos. 2 and 4, Clallam County Search and Rescue, and members of the sheriff’s chain gang needed about five hours to retrieve his body.
Experienced logger
Perkins was an experienced faller who owned Full Circle Cutting, Bower said.
Perkins had worked for Rayonier and Hermann Brothers Logging and Construction Inc. of Port Angeles, among other logging companies, Bower said.
Bower said Perkins had two adult children: a son, Ezra, and a daughter, Sally.
“It was one of those freak things,” Bower said. “It was a bad day for us.
“He was an excellent cutter, very experienced. He’d been doing it for a long, long time.”
