The 37-year-old woman who was killed by a huge piece of plywood that flew off a Greenwich Village condo conversion was laid to rest over the weekend. Tina Nguyen, who was to be married this summer, was buried in her wedding gown, according to the Daily News.
Nguyen had been walking on West 12th Street near 6th Avenue last Tuesday when a four-foot by eight-foot piece of plywood came loose from The Greenwich Lane development and slammed her into a brick wall. She was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. Work was halted at the luxury condo site.
She was to be married in July to Alejando Beitler. The News reported from her funeral in Philadelphia: "Nguyen’s bridesmaids attended the funeral in the floor-length yellow gowns they had planned to wear to her July wedding. They all sported red shoes, in honor of their friend’s Vietnamese roots... Beitler, spoke briefly at the service inside St. Thomas Aquinas Church to express his love for Nguyen. Beitler, who proposed to his fiancee atop the Eiffel Tower, expressed his love for Tina."
Beitler and the groomsmen also appeared to be wearing their wedding suits. The fiancé had issued a statement after Nguyen's death saying, "She always saw the best in everyone. She was always reminding me to see the same. We were together for five of the best years of our lives. We planned to be married in July of this year. The family and I have decided to bury her in Philadelphia. This is the most devastating loss. She was the woman of my dreams. I hope people will remember her by seeing the best in one another and treating each other with true kindness."
The Post reports that Nguyen is the first pedestrian to be killed by falling construction debris in six years, but "in the past five years, 59 people have been struck by falling debris from New York City construction sites. And the numbers are on the rise: 27 percent of those pedestrians were victimized between January and September of last year.... The 16 people injured in the first nine months of 2014 included two people struck by falling glass on West 57th Street in July; one driver who was injured when four cars — including a taxi — were hit by a plank that dropped from the roof of a building on East 88th Street; and two pedestrians splashed with concrete while walking down Broadway in Tribeca."
