7-year-old girl dies in Great Smoky Mountains National Park after tree falls on her tent
CBSN
A 7-year-old girl was killed after a tree fell on her tent in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to a news release from the National Park Service.
Park rangers responded to an emergency in the Elkmont Campground at around 12:30 a.m. on July 27 after the tree fell on the girl, who is from Georgia. Other family members, including her father and two siblings, were not injured, the release said.
The large tree — a red maple — was about two feet in diameter.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.