Tina Nguyen, 37, killed by large sheet of plywood as she walked in Manhattan

A WOMAN, 37, walking along a footpath met the most tragic of deaths.

Real estate agent Tina (Tram Thuy) Nguyen was killed by a sheet of plywood on a construction site that had been picked up by the wind.

Nguyen was on her mobile phone when she was struck by the plywood as she walked on a street in Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The impact slammed her into a wall where she struck her head. She died in hospital the next day.

The sheet of plywood — 4-foot-by-8-foot — was to from a green-painted fence on a luxury 17-story condo construction site. Wind gusts in Manhattan at the time of the accident reached 60kmh, according to the National Weather Service.

“Oh my God, that’s terrifying,” Claudia Karach, 45, who works on he street, told New York Daily News.

“That’s awful. It’s always windy on this coer because Seventh Ave. is pretty wide and we’re close to the water.”

Killed by piece of flying plywood ... Tina Nguyen, 37, was walking on a street in Manhattan, New York. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied

Nguyen worked for real estate firm Keller-Williams.

“I was working normally yesterday when I heard screams coming from outside,” an employee who works across from the work site told the New York Post.

“I looked and saw a man crouched down cradling a young woman in his arms. He was screaming, ‘somebody help! Call 911!’”

Eric Jana, 33, who lives in the building that Nguyen was slammed against, told the New York Post: “It’s frightening and incredibly unfortunate what happened. This was just a terrible freak accident.”

New York City’s Buildings Department issued a full stop-work order for the site. The department also said it issued Environmental Control Board violations to the contractor, Tuer Construction Company, for a failure to safeguard property and for failing to provide plans for its construction fence.

Workers on the job site said that they were told the project would be shut down indefinitely.