Bad luck strikes twice for New York woman

NEW YORK — A woman whose apartment was burned in the high-rise crash of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's plane was the victim of another frightening, bizarre and high-profile Manhattan accident years earlier, when a lamppost knocked over by a parade float seriously injured her.

Kathleen Caronna and her family were unhurt in Wednesday's crash, which killed Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger. But the engine of the Cirrus SR20 landed in her bedroom, which went up in flames minutes before she would have arrived home, her relatives told the Daily News.

"How do you go through two major things like this?" Caronna's sister-in-law, Lisa Brown, told the paper. "It's spooky. It's very spooky."

Attempts to reach Caronna for comment Friday were unsuccessful.

Caronna was critically injured during the 1997 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when the mammoth Cat in the Hat balloon went out of control and knocked part of a lamppost onto her head.

The investment analyst, then 33, was in a coma for nearly a month. She sued Macy's and the city for $395 million, but settled for an undisclosed amount in 2001.

Caronna had been watching the parade with her husband and then-infant son at 72nd Street and Central Park West. The plane crash occurred at 72nd and York Avenue, several blocks east.