Kenneth Luna\u2019s family said he died doing something he enjoyed: walking through the park near his Bronx home to clear his mind.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 28, the 29-year-old left the apartment he shared with his mother on Brook Avenue in Mott Haven and walked three blocks to St. Mary\u2019s Park, according to his younger sister Maria Luna. Temperatures in New York City felt like 10 degrees that night, and Maria Luna said she suspected that her brother had been drinking.<\/p>\n
Had it not been dangerously cold outside, she said, Kenneth Luna might have made it home alive.<\/p>\n
But he had lain somewhere in the park and did not get up. First responders found him the next morning after a passerby called 911, Maria Luna said, and he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wasn\u2019t homeless,\u201d she told Gothamist on Wednesday. \u201cMaybe there was no one around to help him.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Hall officials released Luna\u2019s name on Tuesday as part of a list of 18 deaths in public places during the recent period of frigid weather that first gripped the city on Jan. 19. He is one of the youngest people on the list so far, which includes previously unreported names of several others who were also discovered dead across the city.<\/p>\n
Luna is also one of about two dozen people<\/a> who likely died of hypothermia \u2014 either outdoors, at transit locations or in private homes \u2014 during the cold stretch, according to City Hall. The overall death toll, which has ballooned over the past two weeks as authorities confirmed more cases, now also includes seven fatalities in residential settings.<\/p>\n The Mamdani administration is still investigating some of the deaths and their official causes, including Luna\u2019s. But the city\u2019s chief medical examiner testified at a City Council hearing Tuesday that 15 of the 18 fatalities in public spaces are believed to be directly related to hypothermia, and the head of the Department of Social Services said some of those people had previous interactions with the city\u2019s shelter system.<\/p>\n As those reviews continue, Gothamist has found at least several of those who died outside had housing<\/a> \u2014 underscoring that even people in stable living situations can be vulnerable to extreme weather.<\/p>\n Philip Piuma, 47, who officials said was found outside a Key Food in Flushing on Jan. 27, was not homeless either, according to the Rev. Larry Byrne, rector at All Saints Episcopal Church in Bayside. He said Piuma was a longtime member of the church who lived in the area and worked as an alarm dispatch officer.<\/p>\n \u201cPhilip was a gentle soul, he was a great guy, he always wanted to help people, he had a great sense of humor,\u201d Byrne said. “Phil was a bit like Will Rogers in that he’d never met a person he didn’t like.”<\/p>\n The grocery store\u2019s manager spotted Piuma sitting on a bench outside the store the night before he was found dead, the New York Daily News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was pretty shocking the way he died,\u201d Byrne said.<\/p>\n Maria Luna said she only discovered her brother was missing when she went to visit their mother that Friday. She said she checked with the Bronx restaurant where he worked as a server, and they also had not seen him.<\/p>\n When medical examiners called later that afternoon to tell her Kenneth Luna had died, Maria Luna said, they explained he had arrived at the hospital as an unidentified patient, because he lacked a cellphone and identification.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shocked,\u201d she said. \u201cHe always came home, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n In the days since her brother\u2019s death, Maria Luna said her family has been grappling with what could have saved him. She said she wished more police had been assigned to patrol St. Mary\u2019s Park, which is right across the street from the NYPD\u2019s 40th Precinct and can be desolate at night.<\/p>\n