You would think that after two lawsuits over falling trees in Central Park, steps would have been taken to prevent people from being seriously injured or killed. At least along heavily traveled walkways and near the Zoo.

And you would be wrong. Our New York City injury lawyers are saddened by the tragic news that a six-month-old toddler was killed and the mother seriously injured after a falling tree limb struck them over the weekend.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the accident an "act of God," according to the New York Times. "It's very tragic and trying to assign blame isn't really something we should be focusing on," the Mayor said.

The mayor says cutting down every tree in Central Park would be the only solution.

That comment is disingenuous at best. This accident did not happen in some remote corner; it happened at the entrance to the zoo, one of the most heavily traveled areas in the park. And this isn't the first time someone has been seriously injured or killed by a falling limb in Central Park in the last year. It isn't even the second time. A New York City municipal liability claim can be filed whenever someone is seriously injured or killed on city property. In this case, it is evident that two previous accidents did not result in corrective action.

Instead, a 33-year-old mother was posing with her infant near the entrance to Central Park Zoo when the branch fell 30 feet. The infant was killed and the mother was critically injured. She remains hospitalized in stable condition.

A Brooklyn man was killed by a falling branch in February and his family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Last July, a 33-year-old Google employee suffered spine and brain injuries after being struck by a branch on the west side of the park.

The city has responded to this latest accident with confusion and was initially unable to identify who was responsible for tree maintenance. The Central Park Conservancy, a private non-profit group, has maintained a majority of the park's trees since 1998. However, the tree was partly on the zoo grounds, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Wildlife Conservation Society. That organization declined to provide the media with any information about the care and inspection of the surrounding trees, according to the Times.

Mayor Bloomberg defended the city's reliance on outside organizations and rebuffed questions about whether it would rethink the strategy in light of the most recent fatal accident, saying "the city can't do everything."

The Conservancy reports it spends nearly $1 million on tree maintenance each year and prunes about 6,000 trees. The Wildlife Conservation Society said it spent $40,000 in the last year maintaining 80 trees in the zoo.