Twenty-six are killed as the truck plunges 330 feet into a ravine. She dies from heart failure brought on by physiological stress. She was covered, her entire body, with ant bites. It is also heavily-populated with waterfowl, so much so that the county believes it has to kill off the snails in late June with chemicals to prevent swimmers' itch. They don't kill the ducks, though, and the tourists feed them, perpetuating the cycle.
Swimmers itch is caused by a tiny worm.
It also penetrates human skin, where it causes an allergic reaction, a rash, although the worm itself dies quickly. The pond had been the site of a major logging operation in the last three decades of the 19th century and Blind Lemon Joy was carrying an armload of old, waterlogged timber he had gathered from the pond. It was birdseye maple, mostly. He had some small pieces and some longer ones, up to four feet in length. I asked him what he was doing.