{"id":876849,"date":"2026-06-18T22:31:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/876849\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T22:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:31:31","slug":"teen-tourist-who-was-thrown-to-his-death-from-central-park-horse-was-desperately-trying-to-save-moms-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/876849\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen tourist who was thrown to his death from Central Park horse was desperately trying to save mom’s life"},"content":{"rendered":"

He died a hero.<\/p>\n

A teen tourist who was tragically\u00a0thrown to his death<\/a>\u00a0from a Central Park horse carriage was reportedly trying to save his mother\u2019s life after the animal bolted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Romanch Mahajan, 18, a tourist from India, was taking in the Big Apple sites with his family when they booked an iconic horse-and-buggy ride and the spooked beast took off in a deadly, caught-on-video mishap.<\/p>\n

Romanch Mahajan was killed after he was thrown to his death from a Central Park horse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were yelling, \u2018Help me, help me!\u201d the teen\u2019s father, Deepak Mahajan, told the New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n

His wife, Priya, then fell from the carriage and Romanch jumped down to try to help her, the grieving dad told the outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son, just to save his mother, he fell off,\u201d Deepak Mahajan said. \u201cHe was screaming, \u2018Mom!\u2019\u201d\u00a0
Mahajan fell on the ground and struck his head.<\/p>\n

He was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The carriage driver\u00a0had gotten out to take a picture of the family when the horse bolted, tearing up onto the sidewalk and accelerating on the grass.<\/p>\n

Dramatic video footage shows the driver desperately chasing after the runaway carriage before the teen is thrown to the ground and the buggy crashes into the ground.<\/p>\n

The incident is now under investigation, with the carriage driver\u2019s union saying its members are never allowed to leave the carriage.<\/p>\n

Mahajan\u2019s devastated father said his son was trying \u201cto save his mother.\u201d Obtained by NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears the driver was at least at arm\u2019s length from his horse. This is unacceptable,\u201d Alexander Kemp, a vice president at Transport Workers Union Local 100, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cA driver is not supposed to leave the carriage to take photos \u2014 ever. We support a full investigation,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

The union said the driver has been suspended, and the 7-year-old horse, Sampson, was retired from service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When reached at his Queens home, driver Ertan Gokdepe declined to comment, but a\u00a0shop steward\u00a0from the union who was with him spoke up on his behalf, saying:\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s absolutely devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahajan was later pronounced dead at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. Jordan Donegan<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been driving a carriage for 20 years. Nothing like this has ever happened to him. Nothing like this has ever happened to our industry. So it\u2019s just awful,\u201d the rep said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also worried that opponents of carriage horses will come after him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s worried about his family. These people that we\u2019re dealing with aren\u2019t normal people,\u201d the rep said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ryder\u2019s Law, a bill to phase out horse carriages, was reintroduced to the City Council last week. The law is named after a carriage horse named Ryder, who collapsed while working on a hot August day in 2022.<\/p>\n

Carriage driver Ertan Gokdepe stepped out to take a picture of the family before the fatal incident. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

The City Council\u2019s health panel refused to advance Ryder\u2019s Law out of committee in November, despite support from equine activists and former Mayor Eric Adams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hours before he left office, Adams signed an executive order mandating that the fleet of horse carriage drivers undergo regular veterinary inspections and be\u00a0tested for drugs and injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The move came\u00a0 weeks after city-hired veterinarian Dr. Kraig Kulikowski attempted to conduct \u201cindependent\u201d testing on a sampling of a dozen carriage horses across three stables but was thwarted.<\/p>\n

All 12 horses\u2019 carriage owners refused \u201cstandard\u201d follow-up tests such as trotting to evaluate possible lameness and blood testing for drugs such as painkillers,\u00a0The Post previously reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Transport Workers Union Local 100 said the driver has been suspended. WNYW<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was sworn into office in January, had expressed earlier support for the ban on the Central Park carriages, telling reporters, \u201cI plan to deliver on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, his administration has not followed through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Manhattan Councilman Christopher Marte, a fierce opponent of horse-drawn carriages, issued a scathing statement after Wednesdays fatal accident.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnough is enough,\u201d Marte said. \u201cThis is yet another serious and terrifying incident involving a carriage horse\u00a0in Central Park, and it should make clear to everyone that delay is no longer defensible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The union also stated that the 7-year-old horse, Sampson, was retired from service. AP Photo\/Seth Wenig<\/p>\n

The horse-carriage death comes about a week after a carriage horse named Deniz collapsed and died in Central Park, likely from consuming a toxic plant.<\/p>\n

Deniz keeled over at Strawberry Fields around 7:30 p.m. June 9.<\/p>\n

The horse\u2019s death, described by onlookers as \u201cagonizing,\u201d occurred shortly after the animal began thrashing on the ground.<\/p>\n

Only weeks before Deniz\u2019s death, a coachman was injured when a spooked carriage horse charged into another horse-drawn carriage and caused it to overturn in Central Park.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s\u00a0incident prompted a curt statement from PETA, which has long opposed the use of the horses for the amusement of tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom collapsing horses to careening carriages, how many more disasters have to strike before we get these beleaguered horses out of the park?\u201d a spokesperson for the animal rights group said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor everyone\u2019s safety, PETA is calling on council members, Health Committee Chair Lynn Schulman, and Speaker Julie Menin to stop dithering and pass Ryder\u2019s Law immediately,\u201d the statement said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, community organizers have scheduled a vigil following the tragic crash, to be held at 10:45 a.m. Monday at the Cherry Hill Fountain.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He died a hero. A teen tourist who was tragically\u00a0thrown to his death\u00a0from a Central Park horse carriage…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":876850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,18061,5416,75723,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5268,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-876849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-central-park","tag-deaths","tag-horse-carriages","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-tourists","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116773485843405506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}