The teenager was sledding with a 3-year-old boy in Lewiston “when they hit a tree at the foot of the hill,” the office said in a statement.
The two children were then taken to John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, where the girl was pronounced dead, according to the office.
The park where they were sledding, Clyde L. Burmaster Park, has been closed and the case remains under investigation, the sheriff’s office said.
From 2008 to 2017, 220,488 patients were treated in the U.S. emergency departments for sleigh-related injuries, according to the Injury Policy and Research Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Almost 70% of these patients were children 19 years or younger.