The 46-year-old pedestrian who was struck and killed by a 100-pound tree branch in Central Park emigrated ten years ago from Albania and is survived by a wife and two kids. Relatives and police think Elmaz Qyra was just getting off his shift working behind the bar at the New York Athletic Club when he became the victim of the “freak accident.” "It was his dream to come to America and buy a home and provide a better life for his family," said his supervisor Cesar Zuzunaga. "He was always talking about his family and he was family to us here."
Often Qyra would meet his teenage son and daughter to walk in the park after work, but luckily he was alone on Thursday when the limb of an elm tree—weighted down with snow from the blizzard that was swirling around him—broke off and fell on his head. "He loves the park. He goes there every summer with the kids to take picture and have hot dogs," his brother-in-law Gaz Bharmi told the Post, outside the family’s Dyker Heights home. City officials claim that the tree was healthy, and blamed the severe storm for the breakage, which took place on “Literary Walk,” near ear the corner of East 69th Street and Fifth Avenue.
