Bigfoot Hunter’s Death By Fall Remembered
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 24th, 2012
Today, September 24th, is the anniversary of the injury leading to the death of a rocker climber and Bigfoot hunter.
Tod Emerson
Tod Emerson, 44, an American living in Wales, had started work on a renewable energy degree at Glyndwr University. Adventure called, however, and Emerson was injured while rockclimbing at a quarry at Llanferres on Wednesday, September 24, 2008. He was airlifted to Glan Clwyd Hospital, where he died from his injuries the following day.
In reading tributes to him, this from his mother Jo Emerson jumped out:
“My son Tod was born on a Sunday evening, in the summer of 1963….Even as a young man he was an outdoorsman and enjoyed fishing and hunting with his buddies and we lived in the perfect area for that. There was only one game that escaped him: His quest to hunt down and befriend Bigfoot. He tracked him for days on end.”
Emerson, originally from California, joined the US Air Force after leaving school and was stationed at Greenham Common, Berkshire. He decided to stay in the UK and later moved to north east Wales, where he worked in the printing industry and settled in Ruthin.
Emerson was a former employee of NWN Media, publisher of the Evening Leader, in Mold, where he had many friends and colleagues.
Former colleague and fellow rock climber Raymond Tunley said: “He was a keen cliff climber, surfer and outward bounds enthusiast.”
Tod’s partner Rachel added: “His appetite for adventure and zest for life was made manifest in his love for climbing and surfing, where he had made many close friends from these activities and he loved them all dearly.”
By coincidence, I fell 40 feet on September 24, 1993, in a rural part of Portland, Maine, while rockclimbing. I broke my back, was hospitalized for two weeks, and took five months to nearly fully recover. I’ll never be the same. Rockclimbing is a dangerous sport.
My remembrances to the Emerson family, friends, children, and partner.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
