Yingyi Li, killed in tree fall. (William C Lopez/New York Post)
TRAGEDY: This toppled oak tree crushed Yingyi Li (inset) as she sat on a bench in Queens’ Kissena Park early last night. (
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A pregnant woman was killed last night when a 60-foot oak tree fell over and crushed her as she sat on a bench by a lake in a Queens park, police said.
Yingyi Li — who was expecting a baby girl in three months — was killed in Kissena Park at around 6 p.m.
“She was a very great, loving person,” her husband, Aleksandar Dikov, said early this morning. “It’s a big shock to me. She was alone. We usually go together.”
The tree toppled on a slope near Kissena Lake, smashed the bench that the 30-year-old Li was sitting on, and sent branches sprawling across a jogging path.
“There was just so much blood,” said a witness, Salvatore Delligatti, 64. “The tree just crushed her.”
Witnesses said that an ambulance arrived at the scene within minutes, and Li was taken to New York Hospital Queens, where she was pronounced dead.
Dikov, 10 years his wife’s junior, said the couple celebrated their first anniversary in June. They were about to move to Oak Avenue in Flushing, he said.
“She was six months along,” he said. “I was so happy with her. I don’t think I’ll find any other girl like that — I know I won’t.”
Dikov said his wife — who liked to take daily walks in the park — emigrated from China in 2008 and graduated from Ithaca College.
Some parkgoers said the city’s Parks Department has not maintained the space well enough.
“They just aren’t taking care of this park anymore,” said Artie Latieri, 54. “These trees are really old. A lot of these need to be taken out before somebody else gets hurt.”
State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Queens), who was in the park last night, said that the city should be spending resources on maintaining trees instead of planting them.
“How many incidents have to happen before we recognize we are not maintaining existing trees?” Avella asked.
A spokesperson for the Parks Department did not return a request for comment last night.
In June, a tourist from Indiana was injured when she was struck by a falling tree branch in Central Park.
In 2010, a 6-month-old baby was killed and her mom injured by a falling branch near the Central Park Zoo.
A Brooklyn man was killed by a branch in Central Park earlier that year, and a Google engineer was severely injured there in a similar accident the year before.