A 16-year-old girl died and a small child was injured in a sleigh crash in New York State on Saturday.
The couple were riding down a hill on a sledge at Clyde L. Burmaster Park, formerly Bond Lake Park in Lewiston, when they hit a tree at the bottom of the hill shortly after 10 a.m., according to the sheriff’s office. Niagara County.
The 16-year-old was pronounced dead at a children’s hospital in Buffalo and the 3-year-old was treated and released, officials said.
Local police and sheriffs closed the sleigh hill while investigating the crash.
Sleigh injuries have declined in recent decades, but more than 220,488 patients went to U.S. emergency rooms for sleigh injuries between 2008 and 2017, according to the National Children’s Hospital Injury Research and Policy Center of Columbus, Ohio.
According to the organization, children were seven times more likely to be treated for sled injuries than adults.