NEW YORK – A giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade snagged a street light and knocked part of it off, injuring a woman in a wheelchair and her 11-year-old sister.
The girl needed nine stitches in her head and her 26-year-old sister was bruised, police Lt. John Grimpel said.
“We should be thankful none were more seriously hurt,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Eight years ago, another balloon knocked over a lightpost during the parade, critically injuring a woman and prompting changes in parade rules.
The accident Thursday happened in Times Square near the end of the nationally televised parade when the tethers on M&M’s balloon became tangled the street lamp and it broke off.
“It happened so fast,” said parade spectator Karim Simmons. “It dropped like a rock.”
Macy’s spokeswoman Elina Kazan said later Thursday that the Macy’s Santa Claus had visited with the injured girl, Sarah Chamberlain, and that the company helped arrange for her and her sister, Mary, and their family to return to Albany.
Their father, Stephen Chamberlain, told The New York Times, “We plan to go back to the parade next year.”
The crew handling the balloon was experienced, Macy’s said in a statement. Its members were apparently trying to correct the balloon’s course after a gust when it reached the street light, Bloomberg said.
The circumstances were an echo of the 1997 accident, when 45 mph winds blew a “Cat in the Hat” balloon into a metal pole on Central Park West.
As a result of that accident, balloon handlers were ordered to be given more training, and guidelines were set to ground balloons if the winds were too strong. Streetlights were also redesigned, including the one broken Thursday.
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