The collapse of the crane that day wasn't the only tragic event in Brigitte Gerney's life. Nor was it even the only accident she experienced with machines. In 1982 she suffered serious injuries after a ski lift gondola she was riding in Switzerland somehow came loose and plummeted to the slopes below. Before that, in 1980, she survived a diagnosis of lung cancer. She lost her first son in a drowning incident when he was just a toddler, as well. And her luck didn't seem to change after she survived the crane accident, either. She fell in love with a doctor involved in her treatment and planned to marry him, but a disgruntled former patient of his shot and killed him before they could start a life together.
Despite the hardships, Gerney kept a positive attitude throughout her life. Her son said that she was the kind of person who would say that "only in New York" would a crane fall and crush her legs, but that the city is also the only place that would stop everything on a dime to save her and find the best doctors to rebuild them. She even asked the judge to have leniency on the man operating the crane that fell on her, even though he was uncertified and filling in for someone who had gone home. Brigitte Gerney died on June 18, 2021, at the age of 85.
