A 16-year-old girl was killed and a child was injured in a sleigh accident in upstate New York on Saturday.
The two were going down a hill in a sleigh tube at Clyde L. Burmaster Park, formerly Bond Lake Park, in Lewiston, when they hit a tree at the foot of the hill shortly after 10 am, according to the County Sheriff’s Office Niagara.
The 16-year-old was pronounced dead at a children’s hospital in Buffalo and the 3-year-old boy was treated and released, officials said.
Local police and sheriffs closed the sled hill while investigating the accident.
Sleigh injuries have declined in recent decades, but an additional 220,488 patients went to the U.S. emergency rooms for sleigh injuries between 2008 and 2017, according to the Injury Policy and Research Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Children are seven times more likely to be treated for sledding accidents than adults, according to the organization.