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A MAN WAS struck and killed by a Mardi Gras float during a night street parade in New Orleans, becoming the second person in days killed along a parade route during this year’s carnival season, authorities said.
The man was fatally injured just before 7pm as the popular Krewe of Endymion float was rolling, New Orleans police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Remaining floats that followed, along with marching groups, were diverted from the accident scene on Canal Street, a wide route popular with parade viewers in the Mississippi River port city.
The float was cordoned off by police on horseback and on foot.
The fatality came as New Orleans was still mourning the death of a 58-year-old woman who – witnesses said – was run over by a parade float on Wednesday night.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that the south Louisiana city was grieving.
“To be confronted with such tragedy a second time at the height of our carnival celebrations seems an unimaginable burden to bear. The city and the people of New Orleans will come together, we will grieve together, and we will persevere together,” Ms Cantrell said in a statement. “Our hearts break for those lost and for their loved ones, and our prayers and deepest sympathies are with them.”
Wednesday’s fatality had occurred during the parade of the Mystic Krewe of Nyx, an all-female carnival group. Witnesses said the woman, New Orleans native Geraldine Carmouche, had apparently tried to cross between two parts of a tandem float and tripped over a hitch connecting the sections.
Tandem floats are multiple floats connected together and pulled by one tractor. It was not immediately clear if a tandem float was involved in last night’s fatality, but city agency NOLA Ready said that tandem floats would not be allowed for the few days remaining in the 2020 festival season.
The carnival season is nearing its traditional all-out Fat Tuesday celebration, the climax of a week or more of parades and partying.
The Krewe of Bacchus will split its tandem floats for its Bacchus Sunday evening parade, the group said in a statement. A statement from the Krewe of Orpheus said it would follow the city’s safety recommendations for its parade on Monday.
The deaths also come just a year after a car sped into a bicycle lane near a parade route, hitting nine people and killing two cyclists not far from where the Krewe of Endymion formation had just passed. A man identified as the driver was subsequently charged with two counts of vehicular homicide.
Before this year, the most recent carnival float-related fatality in Louisiana happened in 2009, when a 23-year-old rider fell from a float and in front of its wheels in Carencro, about 120 miles west of New Orleans.
In 2008, a rider getting off a three-part float after the Krewe of Endymion parade in New Orleans was killed when the float lurched forward and the third section ran over him, police said.
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Thank god the mean streets of stepaside will finally be safe again
@Lurfic: You obviously don’t know Ballyogan or the area at all.
@Niall Brew: Ballyogen is in the Cabinteely area …not Stepaside
@Christopher Doyle: nah it’s not
@Art Attack Head: just goes to show what u know … nice head by the way
@Niall Brew: I never heard of Ballyogan. Is it the ghetto of South Co. Dublin?. Where you’ll get a rugby ball across the back of your head if you step out of line.
@Tom Allen: Har har all of South Dublin is rich and upper class….oh Lord
@Christopher Doyle: sorry typo..Ballyogan. which isn’t in the Cabinteely area. Its 6 mins from Stepaside, 9 from Cabinteely
@Niall Brew: there’s a station two km away.
@Niall Brew: ah i see, fair play. You countered my comment with facts. If more people on this app did that, we would all learn something.
@Tom Allen: Its not a bad area or anything, i’m just using it as an example. The stepaside Garda station is a main one for a large area. I mean a mr big has lived in Sandyford and currently resides in Churchtown. Every area in Dublin has issues. How many people have heard of Beech Hill in D4?
@Lurfic: every single business in stepaside village has been done in at least once, including the pub since the garda station shut down. Ballyogan is covered by cabinteely garda station by the way
@Tom Allen: You definitely wouldn’t be getting a rugby ball to the back of the head in Ballyogan, that’s for sure. I don’t think our friends, of their own ethnic background that live in the area, have mastered the art of it yet….
@Tom Allen: Put it this way, in the local Dunnes Stores they store all of the baby seat trolleys at the back of the shop to stop families nicking them to use as prams. – no joke! Its just so convenient when you drive up the shop with 2 babies in the rain. Parts of Bally-O are fully fledged alright.
It’s a start, now reopen the rest of them and recruit even more guards, like another 5000, the country is riddled with crime
@The Rev Ndabaningi Sithole: so true, absolutely a joke the reserve guards are, train them as real guards no more pretending guards, joke
@Mick Hannigan: the country isn’t riddled with crime. It’s riddled with criminals with 200+ convictions!
@Adam O’Sullivan: call it whatever, the country is riddled with it,
@Mick Hannigan: they could do with recruiting a few guards with a bit of manners,most of the present crew treat the public as a nuisance,worthy of a few grunts complete with a few snide remarks,depending on the mood.I am starting to think most of them are permanently hungover.
@joe oneill: There’s no grunt like a garda grunt. I was top of my class in Templemore for it.
@Tom All,you should have heard the grunt when I asked my local FF TD could he get me in to Templemore…I think it was a grunt of approval,never bothered me bollixxxx turning up for the interview.
Any more guards being sent out to Offaly?
Plenty of assaults and robberies against the elderly there the last while.
@Franklin Roosevelt: No. Sure haven’t they done a good spread? like Clare is included …. oh wait. No it’s not.
Open them all up again
@Martin Parke: half of them were sold off.
@David Dickson: Correct.
@David Dickson: __ Did they get to keep the blue light out front, to keep the burglars away?
Ballinspittle ,what a joke , it’s been thirty years since anything moved down there !
“Stepaside, Gardaí coming through”.
Probably riddled with damp from being abandoned and will cost tens of thousands to rectify and decommission IT requirements. They should never have been closed!
@Me_a_monkey: I believe they had security guards living in the stepaside station maintaining it as well as far as I know.
Very nice places….
This will make the rural burglars very happy! Bloody joke
@Frankie Shanley: 4 of the 6 are in rural areas
All stations that were closed should be reopened. They were all operational for a reason. Maybe if crime visited some of the politicians we would have a different outlook.
Ahh Shane Ross the articulate bull@¥#%er, no reason to suspect his local stepaside station “with one of the lowest crime rates in the country” was anything to do with him when it was set to reopen.
Nothing to see here, no corruption in the gardai and no complicity in the dail. smh
Shane’s been off the seen lately, probably betting “ if one is out of sight then one surely is out of mind” what what ha ha, 1 months holidays lads what, spiffing!
What a joke, it’s a never ending punchline.
#Ruralcrimescantbeignored
@Declan: Yep. As usual, the opportunity to announce something any number of times is most welcome to the likes of Ross.
Things close in a recession and reopen in a recovery, unless everyone here wants to pay more tax
@Fergus Sheahan: crime incidence increases in a recession, during austerity and during a differential recovery process.
@Fergus Sheahan: I would be happy to pay a bit more tax if it would guarantee better public services and infrastructure
@EillieEs: we wouldn’t even pay for water, we want everything for free
Good news for Dublin 18!
From the shrill critic of parish pump politics while in opposition.
Like to see more Guards on patrol ,so poor old Santa can do his job safely.
They should have announced this last week, or the week before. Oh wait.
Not like Ross to miss a camera opp
He must be out stopping a strike on the
Trains ? No
Bus ? No
Ryanair ? No
Trams ? No
Forgot that is not his way of sorting out problems
He must be in North Korea
Bring back the flower bed and Sgt Keaveny!
No point having more Garda stations and Gardai arresting criminals….If the Judges just let them all out on bail to re-offend….Even after 50 previous convictions…..
@John003: Two solutions for crime.
1. Build a massive prison away from Dublin.
2. Put electronic bracelets into practice.
@Dave Sherman:
Probably would make sense to build one in Portlaoise, theres experienced staff available for training new hires and logistics are already established plus there is ample undeveloped land and presumably a source of staff in Portlaoise itself.
We absolutely need to tag as well particularly those with long lines of offences, and those who don’t comply with it can go straight in the clink.
Why is this even a discussion, surely it makes sense to just do it?
How much are we spending on free legal aid, surely that money should be spent on running Jails..
What about my local station Mr Ross? Quin county Clare?
Shane Ross. Minister for a affairs except his own actual department. What a useless excuse for a politician.
The future crime prevention and future crime clear up rate is already established, statistically speaking, before these Stations are even re-opened.
have your say