NEW YORK CITY — A 42-year-old man died of hypothermia at a Brooklyn hospital on January 30 after being found on the Manhattan Bridge during extreme cold weather. Jonathan Pender was discovered by a cyclist on a pedestrian walkway of the bridge at around 4:50 a.m., suffering what an NYPD source said appeared to be a medical episode.

Medics rushed Pender to Brooklyn Hospital, where he died about four hours later on the day after his 42nd birthday. The city Medical Examiner's office determined that he died of hypothermia with a secondary cause of chronic and acute alcoholism.

The high temperature in New York City was 12 degrees Fahrenheit on the day Pender died, and the city was under an enhanced code blue state of emergency. According to City Hall, Pender was one of 19 people who died in New York City in the extreme cold between late January and early February. According to City Hall, several of the cold-weather victims had previous contact with the shelter system and social services.

Pender worked as a maintenance worker at the Post Office on Ninth Avenue and West 30th Street in Chelsea, Manhattan. He did not show up for work on January 30, and his mother received a call from his boss expressing concern about his absence.

His family learned of his death more than a week later. A social worker at Brooklyn Hospital called the family eight days after his death to say he had been admitted and discharged on January 30. A nurse in the coroner's office called on February 9 to inform them that he had been dead for over a week.

Pender had recently started having seizures after years of heavy drinking. His co-workers said he turned down offers to stay with them and they suspected he was riding the subway overnight. His boss had secured a spot for him at a rehab facility in Oklahoma and promised his job would be held for him when he returned.

Barbara Pender, his mother who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, said, "If he was dead, we figured somebody would have called us." She also said, "I don't understand why they say we can't force them to go in the hospital because they're not thinking straight. So to me, they need somebody to think for them. To me that doesn't make sense."

Council Speaker Julie Menin said, "These deaths are not inevitable. They are the result of gaps in outreach, shelter capacity, mental health services and follow-up. Every person who freezes to death in this city is a reminder that systems that are designed to protect human life are failing the people who need them most."