Health and safety assessment – Pine Cones

Has anyone ever been seriously injured or killed by a falling pine cone? We’re sitting merrily under a tree that is holding pine cones the size of mini footballs 40ft in the air. They obviously drop fairly regularly as the place is littered with them. But do they ever land on people’s heads? We experimented dropping one from only 15cm up onto John’s head and he said. “Ow, it hurts; they’re both heavy and prickly!”