New Milford, NJ woman, 21, struck and killed when tree comes crashing down during violent storm
AMY NEWMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Michelle Mian, 21, was walking to her car when this damaged tree crashed down and killed her.
Police believe Michelle Mian was walking to her car on River Edge Avenue when the large Norway maple tree split in half, likely from damage suffered during overnight storms, Detective Lt. Brian Long said. She was on her way to a 7:30 a.m. class at Bergen Community College, where she was studying to become a radiology technician, said her sister, Tabish Mian, 23.
The top half of the tree and branches struck her, and Tabish found her on the ground outside when she went to check on the cars and called for help.
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Michelle Mian
"She was the most amazing person in the entire world and my better half, really,” she added. “If you met her, you would have known how beautiful, artistic, talented — she's the kindest person you'll ever meet. She's amazing in so many ways. It's not fair that she's not here with us right now. It's really not."
Tabish described her sister as a “beautiful soul” who enjoyed makeup, henna art, fashion and music.
"I'm never going to be OK with this; I never will be," she said. "She is a very smart girl, actually. She loved helping others. She was very artistic, she loved art."
“Anything you put to her, she could do any type of art,” echoed her friend, Samia Khan, 19, of Bergenfield. “She's so good at that."
Lt. William Duby Jr. and officers Bryan Mone and Robert Sokol of the New Milford police found Mian under a large tree limb next to the driver’s side of a silver Volkswagen Passat, Long said. It’s unclear what caused the tree to break but the lieutenant noted the town experienced heavy rain overnight. Three other officers began CPR but she was pronounced dead at 9 a.m. at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, where she worked as a student intern.
The tree broke between 6:30 a.m. and 7:40 a.m. Cars in the driveway were hit by branches, smashing the back windshield of one.
Mitsu Yasukawa/ Staff Photographer
Imtiaz Mian, the father of Michelle Mian, is consoled by his
friend at Darul Islah at the Muslim Center of Bergen County in Teaneck
on Wednesday, July 1, 2015.
Dozens of family members came to the home Wednesday morning, including many women in traditional Muslim dress. The tree remained split in the driveway, its trunk about 25 feet high and the fallen half about the same height and about a foot and a half wide, with long, leafy branches on both sides. The family is planning a funeral at a Teaneck mosque.
“They’re crying and crying and crying,” said a relative who declined to give his name. “What are the chances you go outside and a tree falls at the same time?”
Mian was studying radiography at Bergen Community College and would have graduated in a year.
"Bergen Community College mourns the tragic passing of Michelle Mian,” said college spokesman Larry Hlavenka Jr. in a statement. “The College offers its most sincere condolences to her family and friends. Counselors are available for students, faculty and staff."
Mian graduated from Bergenfield High School in 2012.
“Our hearts and prayers and thoughts go out to the Mian family,” Principal Jim Fasano said. “We’re all stunned and shocked here.”
Fasano described Mian as having a “contagious smile” that “just lit up the hallways and the classrooms.” As a junior and senior, she was heavily involved in the school’s health career academy, where she took college-level classes through the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
“She just always wanted to help people,” Fasano said.
AMY NEWMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Tabish Mian, right, found her younger sister Michelle Mian
beneath a tree in the driveway as Tabish was leaving for work Wednesday
morning. Pictured with Tabish is a friend of the two sisters.
"Michelle was an exceptional student from the very beginning of her clinical training at Holy Name,” Sue Tate-Potanovic, assistant administrative director of radiology, said in a statement. “She was motivated and eager to learn, and was extremely sweet, kind and caring to everyone she met. Michelle truly understood the meaning of quality patient care and her compassion for our patients was evident. We were blessed to have known her, and extend our deepest condolences to her family."
Her friends described her as a hard-working woman who was great for advice.
"She can make you laugh when you're literally crying,” Samia Khan said.
"She was one of the most hard-working people I know,” added Khan’s sister Mahtab, 21. “A lot of it was dedication to her parents … I'm sure they were very proud of her. And we all are. She was a really great person."
Mian worked at Sona Beauty Salon in Bergenfield, said customer Lyla Moran, 15, of Tenafly, who only trusted Mian with threading her eyebrows.
“I brought all my friends and family,” Moran said. “Just being around her, you were so calm.”
A line of thunderstorms passed through the area between 4 and 5 a.m. Wednesday, dumping about an inch of rain in that time, according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts reached about 40 mph, toppling trees in nearby River Edge, the weather service said.
Mian is one of several North Jersey residents who have been killed in recent years by falling trees following storms. In Teaneck in 2010, a 50-foot Norwegian maple tree cracked during a nor’easter and struck two men as they were walking home from synagogue. A Hawthorne man was killed during Superstorm Sandy when a blown-over tree crashed into the second floor of his home.