{"id":748516,"date":"2026-06-20T09:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T09:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748516\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T09:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T09:04:12","slug":"central-park-tourist-death-prompts-pause-of-horse-drawn-carriages-in-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/748516\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Park: Tourist death prompts pause of horse-drawn carriages in NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

A family holiday to the US turned into a nightmare when an 18-year-old died at one of the world\u2019s biggest tourist destinations.<\/p>\n

Romanch Mahajan was visiting New York City\u2019s Central Park from India when tragedy struck.<\/p>\n

He was with his mother, Priya, 11-year-old brother Manik, and father Deepak.<\/p>\n

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The teenager died on Wednesday, local time, when a horse leading the carriage his family was in bolted at speed and collided with another.<\/p>\n

The impact of the crash ejected him from the carriage, and the teenager smacked his head on the pavement.<\/p>\n

It is understood that Romanch was trying to save his mother\u2019s life when he died.<\/p>\n

His father told NBC News<\/a> the family of four decided to take a 45 minute tour of the park in the iconic horse-drawn carriages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never knew that this was the last day of his life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Throughout the journey, the driver stopped to take picture of the group.<\/p>\n

At one stop, towards the end of the ride, the driver stepped away from the carriage to take a photograph and the horse bolted.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n

The rest of the family suffered only minor injuries.<\/p>\n

The New York Post<\/a> reported that his death was ruled an accident as a result of blunt force trauma.<\/p>\n

The terrifying ordeal was captured on video and shared widely on social media.<\/p>\n

A horse carriage driver Christina Hansen told NBC News the horse involved was \u201cabsolutely fine\u201d and that the driver involved was \u201cvery, very shaken up\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Transport Workers Union, which oversees the horse carriage industry, said it would support a full investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n

In a statement, administrative vice president of TWU Local 100 Alexander Kemp said the circumstances of the teenager\u2019s death were \u201cunacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears the driver was at least at arm\u2019s length from his horse to take a photo of his passengers in the carriage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe horse, which has been in the park for only six weeks, took off for unknown reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unacceptable. A driver is not supposed to leave the carriage to take photos – ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carriage rides were paused over the weekend of June 19 to 21.<\/p>\n

TWU said \u201cthere will be no rides,\u201d in a statement, published by People<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHorses, however, need exercise to remain healthy and fit. Drivers and stable staff will take them out of the barns for that purpose but that purpose only.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family were on day three of a 10 day trip to the US when the tragedy happened.<\/p>\n

The holiday was a celebration for Romanch\u2019s acceptance into an Indian university and recent high school graduation.<\/p>\n

The teenager has been remembered by Mr Mahajan as intelligent.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son was like 6-feet-2 or 6-feet-3, handsome guy, very obedient, very smart guy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big loss to our whole family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The horrific death has renewed calls to ban horse-drawn carriages in the park.<\/p>\n

Central Park Conservancy led the charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cA young man came to enjoy our park and lost his life,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is not an acceptable cost of an antiquated industry operating in the middle of one of the most heavily used public spaces in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a sentiment echoed by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, who said in a statement that he had been briefed on \u201cthe horrific incident in Central Park that took someone\u2019s life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carriage rides have been running since the park\u2019s opening in 1858 and this is believed to be the first passenger fatality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A family holiday to the US turned into a nightmare when an 18-year-old died at one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40,2957,1720],"class_list":["post-748516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-usa","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}