Carriage horse rides in Central Park will be suspended until at least Tuesday following the death of an 18-year-old passenger earlier this week, the union representing carriage drivers announced Friday.
During that time, the roughly 200 carriage horse owners and drivers will undergo “refresher training” on safety rules and protocols, a representative of the Transport Workers Union, which represents city carriage horse drivers, said.
Romanch Mahajan died Wednesday after he hit his head while falling from an out-of-control horse carriage in the park.
“Our hearts go out to the family of Romanch Mahajan. Words can’t express the enormity of this tragedy,” Alexander Kemp, a vice president with TWU Local 100, said in a statement. “We are taking the first steps towards addressing safety issues.”
Mahajan and his family were visiting New York from India and were in the carriage while its driver stepped out to take their picture. While the driver was out of the carriage, the horse bolted.
After Mahajan’s mother fell out of the speeding carriage, the teen jumped after her.
“My son, just to save his mother, he fell off,” Mahajan’s father, Deepak Mahajan, 44, recounted to The New York Times. “He was screaming, ‘Mom!’”
In jumping after his mother, however, Mahajan hit his head and was knocked unconscious. He was taken to an area hospital, where he died about 6:45 pm, according to police.
Mahajan’s father and brother, who remained aboard the runaway horse carriage, managed to escape injury, despite the carriage colliding with a second one and overturning on a park drive.
Obtained by Daily News
A video screengrab shows an out-of-control horse-drawn carriage in Central Park on Wednesday. (Obtained by Daily News)
In the days since, the TWU has voluntarily ended all carriage horse rides in the park — a move union officials characterized as a “safety stand-down” that would continue over the long weekend.
The NYPD is also investigating the crash.
No horses will pull carriages Friday, Saturday or Sunday, a TWU spokesman said, while drivers undergo a refresher on safety protocols and “how to secure and maintain control of carriage horse at all times.”
In the hours after Mahajan was killed Wednesday, the union said its driver had been “at least at arm’s length from his horse to take a photo of his passengers in the carriage,” a situation the union called “unacceptable.”
Union officials said the owner of the carriage in question has suspended the driver, who had 16 years of experience on the job.
TWU spokesman Pete Donohue told reporters Friday that the refresher training would focus on expectations around securing horses, and emphasize that drivers shouldn’t leave “the box” — carriage-talk for the driver’s seat — if passengers are in the vehicle.
“Do not take a photograph,” Donohue said when asked what the refresher would tell drivers in light of Mahajan’s death. “Do not leave the box while you’re passengers are in the carriage. Do not let your passengers get in until you are sitting there and in control of the horse.”
Donohue also said the union is asking the city to install hitching posts in the park, so that horses can be tethered.
“This is the first fatality that anyone is aware of,” in the history of Central Park carriage horse rides, Donohue said. “I don’t think you can say that about any other mode of transportation in this city.”
While horses will be let out of the stables to exercise during the weekend, the refresher will be a classroom exercise. Following the weekend refresher, horse drivers will train with carriages in the park on Monday — but without any passengers, TWU officials said.
Sightseeing rides could resume on Tuesday.
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The aftermath of an out-of-control horse-drawn carriage is pictured in Central Park on Wednesday. (Obtained by Daily News)
The death of the young tourist Wednesday came amid a heated revival of a long-running debate over the future of the city’s carriage horse industry.
Just one week earlier, a horse named Deniz died in Central Park after eating a poisonous plant, a death that came amid a renewed legislative push to ban the issuance of new carriage-horse medallions and wind down the industry.
That bill, known as “Ryder’s Law,” is currently making its way through the City Council. Meanwhile, the TWU has put its political weight behind competing legislation that would further regulate driver training and equine health practices, and mandate the installation of hitching posts in the park.
In its statement Wednesday, the union called on the Department of Health to increase its enforcement of carriage horse safety.
But for some of those who have been calling on the city to shut down the carriage horse industry, the problem is deeper than driver training.
Edita Birnkrant of New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) — which has long lobbied against horse carriages and portrayed the work as abusive — said in a statement Friday that keeping drivers in their seats was insufficient.
“Horses are prey animals hardwired to bolt when they perceive danger,” she said. “When an 1,800-pound horse panics, bolts, collapses or suffers a medical emergency on a crowded city street, the consequences can be catastrophic.
“No amount of inspections, enforcement, oversight, training or new infrastructure can prevent the next horse from spooking, bolting and seriously injuring or killing someone.”
