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An 18-year-old boy died after being thrown to the ground when a carriage horse bolted away from its driver on Wednesday at Central Park of United States’ New York City.
The boy, identified as Romanch Mahajan, belonged to a family which was on its first trip to New York from India, according to a New York Times report.
The accident is said to have taken place at 3 pm (local time) when the teen was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers, two of whom were sent flying out of the careening cab.
The teenager was initially hospitalised in critical condition but later succumbed to the injuries while the other passengers refused medical treatment, according to an Associated Press report.
Purported videos of the incident surfaced online, one of them showing the horse sprinting through the park as two people appeared to jump from the four-wheeled carriage. A second video showed the cab toppling over after clipping the wheels of another carriage on the park’s busy loop.
Deepak Mahajan, the boy’s father, said the incident happened when the driver stepped away from the red-and-white carriage to click a family portrait, according to details of the mishap mentioned in the New York Times report.
“We were yelling, ‘Help me, help me!” Mahajan was quoted as saying. The family clung desperately to one another, but when Mahajan’s wife, Priya, fell out of the carriage, Romanch jumped off it to help her, he said.
“My son, just to save his mother, he fell off,” said 44-year-old Mahajan, adding that he hit his head on the ground and lay still.
A representative for the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage industry employees, said the driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do.
The horse had been in the park for only six weeks, according to Alexander Kemp, the administrative vice president of the union’s local chapter. He said he wants a full investigation.
“Safety in the park has been a growing concern among many, and improvements are needed to be made with respect to all vehicles, including e-bicycles, delivery vehicles, pedicabs, and horse-drawn carriages,” he said in a statement, cited in an AP report.
New York State Senator Erik Bottcher offered condolences to the family of the deceased and said the tragedy comes just days after another carriage horse collapsed and died in Central Park, and only weeks after yet another carriage crash injured a driver.
“These incidents are a painful reminder that horse-drawn carriages do not belong in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. The New York City Council must act and pass Ryder’s Law. As a member of the City Council, I was a prime co-sponsor of this legislation because I believed then, as l do now, that continuing to place horses, carriage drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians in these situations creates unacceptable risks,” he said.
The status quo is failing both people and animals, Bottcher added and said urged for the city council to bring Ryder’s Law to a vote without delay and bring an end to the horse-drawn carriage industry in New York City.
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