New York carriage driver wounded as horse bolts

THE driver of a horse-drawn carriage was critically wounded after being thrown into the street when the animal suddenly bolted, galloped for blocks and then crashed into a station wagon in midtown Manhattan, witnesses said.

The horse, whose carriage had no passengers, smashed into the vehicle on the city’s west side on Monday night, injuring two men in the car, fire department Chief Jim Hodgens said.

“It was horrifying,” said Robyn Hussa, who saw the horse racing through traffic. “It was like a nightmare.”

“He wasn’t moving at all and there was blood all over the place,” said Philip Emran, who had been eating dinner at a restaurant on the corner.

Emran said the horse was wrapped around the estate car, its rear legs on top of the vehicle and its head on the ground. The windscreen of the car was smashed, and the four- wheel carriage was mangled.

The street was soaked in blood by the time the carriage driver was taken away in an ambulance, witnesses said.

The carriage driver was taken to hospital in critical condition, and the two other victims were in stable condition, police said.

The horse had appeared to escape injury and was taken away bucking and kicking in a police wagon but was later put down because of its injuries, said police Detective Bernard Gifford.

Jasna Tomasevic, visiting from Orlando, Florida, said she was so horrified by what she witnessed through the window while dining at the corner restaurant that she changed seats.

“This is really not something which I want to see,” she said.

Last May, a pair of horses broke free in traffic when a hit-and-run truck driver flipped a 120-year-old stagecoach on to its side, sending the runaway equines on an unscheduled jaunt across town. The horses, which were not injured, where corralled a few blocks away.

Manhattan carriage rides, generally in and around Central Park, are popular with tourists all year round and have been featured in movies.