Mother of 3 hit by giant tree says, 'Our lives are forever altered'
— -- A mother of three who was hit by a 3,000-pound falling tree in New York City’s Central Park is speaking out for the first time about the incident and why she plans to file a $200 million lawsuit.
“Our lives are forever altered by what happened,” Anne Monoky, 39, told ABC News’ Adrienne Bankert of the moment last August when the tree fell on her and her three young sons.
“It was, like, a beautiful sunny day. I went to the park, and that's all I remember,” she said. “The next thing I know I was in the ICU.”
Monoky was pushing two of her children, then 4 and 2, in a stroller in Central Park while carrying her newborn son in a carrier on her chest.
Monoky said her 2-year-old son suffered a skull fracture in the Aug. 15, 2017, incident. While her other two children did not suffer major injuries, Monoky said she suffered four fractures in her neck.
While two of Monoky's fractures have healed, she said doctors told her the remaining two fractures will never heal, leaving her at risk of becoming a quadriplegic.
“I can't fall and I can't do, you know, anything outside, I have to be really careful,’ said Monoky, a former marathon runner, who added that her doctor has told her, “You will stop breathing if something jarring happens to you.”
“I mean, for my kids, I just have to move forward and keep going,” she said.
Monoky was pinned on the ground for about 10 minutes before firefighters freed her from the branches of the 75-foot tree, authorities said at the time.
Monoky's husband, Curt Goldman, remembers Monoky only asking about her children in the immediate aftermath.
“She just kept saying, ‘What happened?, Where are the boys? Where are the boys?,’” he recalled.
Monoky said she is still worried about her three sons more than herself.
“I actually don't think of myself in it all,” said Monoky. “I'm more worried about my kids and what they've been through
“You know, they went in the ambulance by themselves,” she continued. “It's scary. They were little. I just am worried about them.”
Monoky and Goldman told ABC News they plan today to file a $200 million lawsuit against the city of New York, the Central Park Conservancy and several companies charged with maintaining the park’s trees.
The Central Park Conservancy is a private, non-profit organization that manages Central Park "under a contract with the City of New York," according to its website.
The couple’s lawyers claim negligence and allege that the trees were not properly maintained.
“This is a tree that was falling right before their eyes,” one of their attorneys, Jordan Merson, told ABC News.
Kimberly Joyce, a spokesperson for the city of New York's law department, told ABC News, “We will review the notice of claim.”
The Central Park Conservancy did not reply to ABC News as of this writing.
Monoky and Goldman say they want the lawsuit to send a clear message to make parks safer.
“We have to tell our story because we want to make sure that, you know, these families are protected,” Monoky said. “No one should have to go through what we went through.”
