PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 6 (UPI) -- The jogger killed by a falling tree branch in a Philadelphia park was identified Thursday as a young teacher who had been in the city for about a year.
Mary Katherine Ladany, 23, died Wednesday evening when a 30-foot branch fell 50 feet from a tulip poplar on Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Police said she was listening to an iPod, which was still playing when officers found her body, and suggested the music may have prevented her from hearing the branch breaking over her head.
Chief Inspector Scott Small described the death as a "freak accident."
"She was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.
Ladany taught at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philadelphia last year. After growing up in Montclair, N.J., she graduated from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania in 2008, where she majored in math.
Investigators said recent severe thunderstorms with high winds may have weakened the branch.
Last week, a Google engineer walking to work was seriously hurt by a tree branch in New York's Central Park.
