A Myrtle Point man died in a logging accident near Gold Beach on Friday afternoon, the second Coos County man killed last week in a forest operation.

The accident happened before 3 p.m., when 54-year-old Thomas Holliday was operating a skidder on an unimproved road in the Lobster Creek drainage, according to a Curry County Sheriff’s Office press release.

Holliday was employed by Zumwalt Logging of Myrtle Point. Crew members had become concerned when they couldn’t locate Holliday, who’d been working alone.

After a short search they found the skidder over an embankment, about 60 feet below the unimproved road. Holliday’s body was near the skidder.

Coworkers were able to reach high ground to access cell phone service and called 911 to report the accident. Sheriff’s Sgt. John Ward, Deputy Walter Scherbarth, and Capt. Bob Rector responded to the scene and, assisted by members of the logging crew, recovered Holliday’s body from the steep crash site.  The cause of death appears accidental, but remains under investigation, the press release said.

The crew was working in forestland off of Upper Fall Creek Road in the general area of Sawtooth Rock, approximately 7.8 miles from the Lobster Creek/Rogue River Bridge.

A Coos Bay man also died last week in a logging accident. Matthew P. Kohanes died Sept. 2 when part of a tree struck him as he was falling timber in Douglas County. The 45-year-old was cutting timber in a road-building project on Roseburg Forest Products’ land, when the top of a tree near the one he was falling slammed into him.