A 56-year-old woman riding on a float in a St. Patrick's Day parade in the Sullivan County hamlet of Rock Hill was killed on Saturday, March 14 after falling off and being run over by a trailer towing a backhoe, according to the New York State Police and the Times Herald-Record.
At 1:20 p.m., Susan McCormick was riding in the back of a Ford pickup truck that was towing a backhoe, police say. When the driver, 25-year-old Bjorn Egenes, pulled over at a gas station to talk to someone in the parking lot, McCormick stood up, "facing forward with her legs against the tailgate of the truck," a state police press release says.
When Egenes finished his conversation and pulled the truck forward, McCormick lost her balance and fell backward over the trailgate of the pickup and onto the ground, where she was run over by the trailer the pickup was pulling, police say.
Pauline Liu of the Times Herald-Record talked to McCormick's husband of 23 years, a firefighter who was also at the parade, although he didn't witness the accident:
"She was up near the beginning of the parade and it was still going on, but her part was done," said John McCormick, in a phone conversation. "She's going to be dearly missed by a lot of people, because she was a really nice woman. She loved 'I Love Lucy' and had a big memorabilia collection. She loved gardening and she loved the St. Patrick's Day Parade. She's been in it before."
The Rock Hill Fire Department is mourning McCormick's death:
