{"id":877244,"date":"2026-06-19T02:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877244\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T02:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T02:24:11","slug":"nyc-carriage-driver-devastated-18-year-old-tourist-dies-union-halts-rides-central-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/877244\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC carriage driver ‘devastated’ 18-year-old tourist dies — union halts rides Central Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

The operator of a runaway horse-drawn carriage that led to the death of an 18-year-old tourist<\/a> is \u201cdevastated,\u201d a rep said Thursday \u2013 as it was revealed all Central Park horse-and-buggy rides were halted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s absolutely devastated,\u201d said Christina Hansen, shop steward for Transport Workers Union Local 100, outside carriage driver Ertan Gokdepe\u2019s Queens home. <\/p>\n

\u201cNothing like this has ever happened to him,\u201d she said, noting that Gokdepe has been in the business for 20 years.<\/p>\n

The scene of the Central Park carriage accident that killed Romanch Mahajan. Eyewitness News ABC7NY<\/p>\n

Carriage driver Ertan Gokdepe is \u201cdevastated\u201d after Wednesday\u2019s fatal crash. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

Romanch Mahajan, 18, a tourist from India, was on vacation with his family when they booked a carriage ride in Central Park with Gokdepe. <\/p>\n

But disaster struck when the horse, 7-year-old Sampson, became spooked as Gokdepe stepped out of the buggy to take a photo of the family, according to sources.<\/p>\n

The horse bolted, knocking Mahajan\u2019s mother, Priya, from the carriage. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy son, just to save his mother, he fell off,\u201d Mahajan\u2019s father, Deepak told the New York Times. \u201cHe was screaming, \u2018Mom!\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He later died of blunt force trauma in what the city medical examiner has ruled an accidental death.<\/p>\n

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

A family photo taken moments before the deadly incident. Obtained by NY Post<\/p>\n

Alexander Kemp, a vice president at TWU Local 100, blasted the driver\u2019s decision to step away.<\/p>\n

\u201cA driver is not supposed to leave the carriage to take photos \u2014 ever,\u201d Kemp said in a statement. \u201cWe support a full investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the union, the incident has created a sense of shock. <\/p>\n

Video showed the spooked horse taking off during the fatal incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is uncharted territory,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cNobody knows quite what to do because nothing like this has ever happened to our industry. It\u2019s just awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never had a fatal accident like this before,\u201d said Kemp. <\/p>\n

The union closed down the stables<\/a> and ceased operations in response to the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have shuttered the stables and ceased operations today while we have extensive internal discussions on what transpired and how it could have been prevented,\u201d Kemp said in a separate statement to NBC NY. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The operator of a runaway horse-drawn carriage that led to the death of an 18-year-old tourist is \u201cdevastated,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":877245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,18061,48396,75723,29625,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-877244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-central-park","tag-freak-accidents","tag-horse-carriages","tag-horses","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","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\/116774401906278536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877244","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=877244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}