Family of NY doctor killed after falling from moving trailer while going to watch eclipse cite ‘significant safety oversight’

The Long Island doctor who fatally fell out of her family’s moving Airstream loved the trailer so much that she nicknamed it and used to sleep there even when it was parked in their driveway.

Tragic well-known pediatrician Monika Woroniecka, 58, dubbed her and her husband’s shiny new silver RV “Nebula” because “it represented adventure and exploration,” said shattered daughter Helena Woroniecka, who witnessed her mother’s ”crazy accident” Saturday afternoon as the family headed through upstate New York to watch the solar eclipse.

“She loved that trailer so much and poured her soul into it,” Helena told The Post on Tuesday.

“She gathered shells from a beach at home and arranged them to spell ‘Nebula’ in a frame above the entrance,” Helena said of her mom, a Stony Brook Medicine allergy specialist and married mother of three.

“She would go in there even just to sleep at home when it was rainy and put so much love into it.”

“She did also love to travel and explore, which is why my parents bought the trailer — they were planning to take an early retirement and travel to national parks and spend time exploring together,” Helena said of the two-month-old vehicle.

“My mom loved her family above everything else, so the fact that my sister and I were coming home so everyone could go see the eclipse together — that’s what she was most excited for was spending time with everyone,” the heartbroken daughter said.

“She was so excited about this trip that for weeks beforehand, she was learning about space and researching different eclipse glasses and buying everyone’s favorite groceries.”

Helena called her mom’s death “pure accident” — although she suggested that the trailer’s design suffered from “a significant safety oversight” because its door opened inward as opposed to outward “against the wind.”

Helena and her mom were riding in the family’s gray 2019 Chrysler Ram truck — which dad Robert, 59, was driving and pulling the Airstream along with — before the family stopped for ice cream at an upstate Stewart’s, state police have said.

Mom and daughter then decided to ride in the trailer during the final 20-minute leg of the family’s trip to an Airbnb in Cape Vincent, cops said.

The family had planned to gather to watch Monday’s celestial event, knowing they also would be together again for Helena’s wedding later this year, neighbors have told The Post.

Helena was lying in the bed in the Airstream when her mom went to “secure” the door — and was still clutching the handle when the door suddenly flew open and hurled her onto the pavement, state police said.

Officials at Airstream, the trailer’s manufacturer, said in a statement this week that their products “are not designed to carry passengers while in motion.”

New York state law also prohibits anyone from riding inside a trailer while it is being pulled by a separate vehicle.

“This was an accident. Pure accident, and there’s nobody to blame. This is nobody’s fault,” Helena said.

“Sure, maybe Airstream doesn’t advise traveling inside the trailer. But we thought maybe that the last 20 minutes of an eight-hour drive on very quiet and slow country roads would be fine,” Helena said.

“And it’s perfectly legal to do so in some states.

“It was just a crazy accident,” she said.

Still, “The doors on the Airstream open the opposite way that you would expect. It doesn’t take an engineering degree to know that on any moving vehicle, whether a bus or a car or a trailer, doors should open against the wind, not towards it,” Helena told The Post.

“That seems like a significant safety oversight to me and seems like the only reason they do open that way is to protect the awning of the trailer.”

Monika was pronounced dead at Samaritan Medical Center — the same hospital where Helena was born while the family lived in Buffalo, the daughter said.

“This trip was the first time they would be back in that town, and she was excited to see their old apartment and the old town, and it so happens that she died in the same hospital I happened to be born in,” Helena said.

Monika and Robert were both born in Poland in 1965 and moved to the US in 1992, their daughter said.

They lived in Sackets Harbor from 1996 to 1999 before moving to Long Island, she said.

“She was the most loving, generous, and golden-hearted person I’ve ever known,” Helena said of her mother.

“She was always, always thinking about how to lend a helping hand to someone, whether her family or patients or friends that had medical questions or strangers on the street.

“She spent her whole life helping and taking care of people in one way or another, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be like her.”