Kentucky woman crushed to death by St. Patrick’s Day Parade float in freak accident
A woman was killed during a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Kentucky after her foot snagged on a moving float, dragging her underneath it and crushing her to death in front of dozens of celebrants.
The freak accident took place as dozens of people, from small children to grandparents, lined the streets for the 53rd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Louisville on Saturday.
The woman, believed to be in her 50s, was walking alongside a float filled with hay bales that was hitched to a gray pickup truck when her foot got caught on the vehicle, according to local reports.
Moments later, she was dragged under the float and run over, NBC affiliate WAVE 3 reported.
The vehicle skidded to a stop as volunteers and parade-goers rushed to the woman’s aid.
She was taken to the University of Louisville Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police told the outlet.
Thousands of others packing the streets closer to the front of the parade had no idea what was happening when the floats slowly came to a halt.
Stephanie Youstra, a volunteer mascot, told WAVE that she had just wrapped up her segment on the route when the floats behind her stopped moving. Other parade participants eventually spread the news of the tragic incident up the line.
“My heart just goes out to anyone who was in that float, and all the people in that float, and the family. I just can’t imagine that they are all feeling,” Youstra told WAVE.
David Gnamba, who was working at his family’s food truck near the parade, watched emergency responders haul the woman onto a stretcher. He didn’t consider it was “something very serious,” let alone fatal.
“It does break my heart because that’s a person that lost their life … this is not news that we want to hear — as human beings, as vendors, as people, as partygoers,” Gnamba told the outlet.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg called on the community to keep the victim’s “family and friends in your prayers.”
“May her memory be a blessing,” Greenberg wrote on X.
The Louisville Metro Police Department’s traffic unit was investigating the incident.
