Parents of baby who died from detached branch in Central Park in New York will receive $ 13.7 million

Photo: Andrés Correa Guatarasma / Courtesy

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Michael Ricciutti and his wife Karla del Gallo won a settlement of $ 13.75 million for the death of their baby, struck by a tree branch in Central Park (NYC), ending a decade-long legal battle with the city and two non-profit organizations that run the park and zoo.

In June 2010, both parents they had stopped to take a picture with little Gianna Ricciutti in front of the Central Park Zoo, when a 45-centimeter-diameter branch suddenly snapped off a tree and fell 25 feet, colliding with the mother and 6-month-old baby cradled in her arms.

The baby was pronounced dead at the hospital. The mother was seriously injured and was in a medically induced coma for weeks.

“He couldn’t call us ‘mom and dad.’ She couldn’t go to school. She couldn’t take her first steps. They took so much from him. Everything was taken from him ”, said Ricciutti crying to the New York Post in 2011, on the first anniversary of her baby’s death.

That year the couple presented a $ 50 million dollar lawsuit against the city; Central Park Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society, who operates the zoo; and Beucler Tree Experts, a Tenafly (NJ) company that the society had hired to trim the trees.

The case was settled last month with the Wildlife Conservation Society insurance companies paying $ 10 million; Beucler $ 3 million; and the city and Central Park Conservancy $ 750,000.

Ricciutti and the Rooster They moved from the tri-state area and today they are 41 years old with two more children. His daughter Gianna would have turned 11 this month.