The woman struck and killed by a flying solar panel in Brooklyn on Sunday morning had left home to buy groceries, according to her longtime husband, who said he’s struggling to imagine life without her as city officials continue to investigate the incident.
“I cry all day,” Mark Braun, 81, told Gothamist by phone Tuesday.
Lyudmila Braun, 76, was shopping on Ocean Parkway and West Brighton Avenue in Coney Island when police said she was hit in her head by a 41-inch by 87-inch solar panel that disconnected from a steel carport structure above a nearby outdoor parking lot. High winds from the incoming nor’easter blew the panel about 20 feet into the path where Braun was walking, according to the city Department of Buildings.
Mark Braun said he had gone to get a routine blood test Sunday when his phone rang. It was Lyudmila’s number, but not her voice.
“It was a nurse from the hospital,” he said. “I asked, ‘She’s alive?’ The nurse said, ‘I can’t talk about it.’ She told me to come to the hospital.”
Lyudmila Braun, 76
Mark Braun rushed to Maimonides Medical Center with one of his two sons and several grandchildren. Hospital staff brought them to a small room, where a doctor came in with the grim news.
“He told us she died in the ambulance,” said Braun, who had been married to Lyudmila for five decades. “They tried to make her alive, but nothing.”
Officials with the Department of Buildings said the panel detached from the parking lot structure next to 3000 Ocean Parkway, part of an apartment complex. The complex was originally developed by Donald Trump’s father Fred Trump and the building is currently owned by a company tied to real estate firm Cammeby’s International Group, public records show. The management obtained a permit to install the solar panels in April 2024, and no construction work was happening at the time of the incident, officials said.
Neither the building’s management nor Cammeby’s offices immediately responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
Buildings department staff closed the nearby entrance to the Ocean Parkway Q train subway station and issued a partial vacate order for the parking lot area below the solar panel installation, officials said. Forensic engineers were back on the scene Tuesday trying to determine how the panel became loose, according to the agency.
Mark Braun said he and Lyudmila made a life in Brooklyn together after arriving from Russia in 1990. He said he spent 20 years working at a Russian restaurant in Brighton Beach, while she worked as a medical assistant in a doctor’s office.
Mark Braun said he and Lyudmila were retired and had two sons and three grandchildren, adding that she doted on her family and took care of various household duties.
“She was very beautiful, she was very kind,” he said, his voice quivering. “We loved each other.”
