A dream family vacation turned into a nightmare in New York City when an 18-year-old Indian tourist, Romanch Mahajan, was tragically killed during a runaway horse carriage accident in Central Park. The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon near Bethesda Fountain during the family’s first-ever trip to the United States. According to eyewitness accounts and local authorities, the Mahajan family—including Romanch, his parents, and his younger brother—had paused their ride to pose for a souvenir photograph. The carriage operator stepped away from the vehicle to take the picture, directly violating strict safety regulations that require drivers to remain with the horse at all times. Left unattended, the seven-year-old carriage horse, Sampson, suddenly spooked and bolted wildly down the crowded park loop.
As the driver frantically chased the runaway vehicle, the carriage careened onto the sidewalk and accelerated down a grass embankment. Clinging desperately to one another, the family screamed for help, but the chaotic motion violently threw Romanch’s mother, Priya, out of the carriage. In a heroic bid to rescue his mother, Romanch leaped from the accelerating vehicle, crying out for her as he fell. The teenager hit his head violently against the pavement, sustaining catastrophic skull injuries, while the driverless carriage subsequently clipped the wheel of another carriage and flipped over, shattering into pieces. Romanch was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he tragically succumbed to his injuries later that evening. The rest of the family escaped with minor physical injuries. The heartbreaking tragedy has ignited immense public outrage and intensified fierce political demands across New York City to pass “Ryder’s Law,” which seeks a total ban on the historic but highly controversial horse-drawn carriage industry.
