At least four people in critical condition after horses trample crowd
Runaway horses at a Fourth of July parade in Iowa killed a 60-year-old woman and injured 23 others, many of them children, after they were spooked and charged at a crowd. The horses were part of the Heritage Day Parade, a tradition that attracts thousands of people to Bellevue, a town of 2,300 people. The chaos started when two horses pulling a buggy bumped into one another, knocking one horse’s bridle off and causing it to bolt followed by the second horse. Bellevue’s fire chief, Chris Roling, said the horses charged along the parade route for a quarter mile, trampling parade onlookers and running into a hay bin, a van, and a street sign before they were finally stopped. Janet Steines of Springbrook, Iowa, whose husband was driving the carriage, succumbed to her injuries on Sunday night at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City. Among the 23 injured were at least four people in critical condition and another five with “major injuries,” like broken bones, collapsed lungs and head injuries, Roling said. Bellevue has only two ambulances, but a dozen additional ambulances rushed to the town, some from as far as 26 miles away. About 70 emergency responders arrived on the scene as well, and a doctor and several nurses and paramedics who happened to be in the crowd watching the parade pitched in to help the injured.