A teenage tourist from India died falling from a carriage in New York City’s Central Park after the horse pulling it got spooked and bolted.
The victim, identified as 18-year-old Romanch Mahajan by law enforcement sources, died in the hospital Wednesday from a head injury he incurred in his fall.
He was in the vehicle with three others when the horse bolted, going up onto grass, clipping another carriage and causing Mr. Mahajan to fall, Transport Workers Union Local 100 told The New York Times.
“The horse got scared and ran super fast. The immediate reaction was just like ’Oh my God, oh my God, my God,’ like covering my eyes because I thought maybe someone had gotten smushed or something I couldn’t even imagine, and then I called 911,” witness Tatianna Bresler told the New York Post.
Another witness, pedicab driver Helen David, told New York’s Daily News that the other passengers included Mr. Mahajan’s parents, saying that after the incident “his father was over him. His mother was on the phone, held by her little boy. They were hysterical.”
Alexander Kemp, vice president of the union that represents the carriage driver, said the driver was standing outside the vehicle, “at least at arm’s length from his horse. This is unacceptable. A driver is not supposed to leave the carriage to take photos — ever. We support a full investigation.”
Officials are unsure what set off the horse. Transport Workers Union Local 100 spokeswoman Christina Hansen told WCBS-TV, “Something happened. [The driver] said he didn’t hear anything. He didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything. Horse took off.”
The horse, Sampson, 7, appeared to be uninjured. Mr. Kemp told the Post that “it’s our understanding that the carriage owner has suspended the driver indefinitely and the horse will be retired from the business.”
Officials with the Central Park Conservancy, which oversees Central Park’s day-to-day operations and maintenance, reiterated their previous calls to stop the use of the carriages.
“This is the tragedy we feared when we first called last year for horse carriages to be banned. … A young man came to enjoy our park and lost his life. That is not an acceptable cost of an antiquated industry operating in the middle of one of the most heavily used public spaces in America. … Every day horse carriages are in the park is a day the safety of New Yorkers and visitors is in jeopardy,” the nonprofit group said in a release Wednesday.
In a previous release, the conservancy pointed to eight horse-related incidents in Central Park over the past 13 months, including the death of a horse on June 9 due to a medical emergency and an accident last month that saw a spooked horse clip a carriage and cause it to tip over, leaving a driver in a neck brace.
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