Woman who was put in a coma from Thanksgiving Day balloon had plane crash into her home just years later
Liv Bridge
Featured Image Credit: John Roca/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
A woman who was put in a coma after a strange accident following a Thanksgiving Day parade float later saw her apartment go up in flames when a plane engine fell into her bedroom.
Kathleen Caronna has had some serious bad luck, which appears to pivot around 72nd street in Manhattan.
The New Yorker was first seriously injured during a particularly windy Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1997.
While many floats were damaged by the bad weather, with Barney the Dinosaur taking a bit of a beating, a gigantic 'Cat in the Hat' balloon careened out of control, knocking a lamppost and breaking part of it off, which landed on Caronna's head.
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The mom had been watching the parade with her husband and eight-month-old son at 72nd Street and Central Park West when she was critically hurt and knocked out by the lampost.
The then 33-year-old was put in a coma for almost a month and sued Macy's and the city for damages for $395 million, though she settled for an undisclosed amount in 2001.
Then, years later in 2006, Caronna's high-rise apartment was burned when a plane engine bizarrely fell into her apartment.
To add another layer of mystery to the crash, it was the late New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's plane that crashed into her flat - on 72nd and York Avenue, several blocks east.
The private jet had set off from New Jersey and crashed into the Belaire Apartments in Manhattan.
The crash killed Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stranger, while the engine of the Cirrus SR20 landed in Caronna's bedroom.
Her flat was engulfed in flames upon impact, and happened just mere minutes before she was due to arrive home.
Miraculously, Caronna wasn't among the 21 people that the crash injured.
Speaking to the Daily News at the time, Caronna's sister-in-law, Lisa Brown, said: "How do you go through two major things like this?
“It’s spooky. It’s very spooky.”
The strange story is circulating again on Reddit as users say it is reminiscent of the supernatural horror movie, Final Destination, where the characters attempt to escape death and disaster.
Another user wrote: "To add to this weirdness: The flight instructor's (Stanger) friend, Bob Cartwright was supposed to be on the flight with Lidle and Stanger. So Cartwright survived... for a little over a month, when a plane he was in crashed and he died."
Cartwright did tell his friends Stranger had invited him on the flight with Lidle in October 2006, before he died in a twin-engine plane crash in California alongside two other men in November, the New York Daily News reported at the time.
"Very Final Destination like, yes," another Redditer replied.
A third chimed: "Time to leave New York", while another said: "What's the opposite of a lottery ticket?"