Bed-Stuy Man Dies From After Being Hit By Tree Branch: Daily News

BED-STUY, NY — A Brooklyn man who was relaxing on a bench at the Reinaldo Salgado Playground died Saturday night when a tree branch fell from 40 feet above and hit him in the head, reported the Daily News.

Jared Richardson died at 8:38 p.m., approximately 12 hours after he was rushed to King County Hospital from the playground, located at Monroe Street and Patchen Avenue, according to the Daily News.

He was initially taken to the hospital for a severe head injury, according to the NY Post.

“It snapped and fell and it hit him in the head,” Lonnie, a 78-year-old witness who only gave his first name to the outlet, said. “It was pretty loud. I thought it was an accident on the street.”

A firefighter was photographed by the Daily News as he tended to Richardson’s wounds as he lay sprawled out on the ground.

The Parks Department told the Daily News that a “failed limb” was from a London planetree and measured 28 inches in diameter. A Parks forestry expert found the tree to be in good condition when it was last inspected in August 2020, a Parks spokesperson said. The tree was last pruned in July 2020.

Richardson is believed to have lived in a building across from the park, but there is no record of him staying there, according to the outlet.

Ray Tolbert, 55, the super from the building across the street, told the Daily News that after the accident the Parks Department workers pulled down at least two more branches using rope.

“We saw they were rotten,” he told the Daily News of the pulled down branches. He noted there was no rain or strong winds the day the branch fell.

“That’s like getting struck by lightning,” he said of the fatal incident. “I’m scared to sit under a tree now. I keep looking up when I go into the park now.”

On Monday, a tree fell into a pool behind an apartment tower in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, killing one swimmer and injuring another, the Daily News added.