NEW YORK – The 11-year-old girl conked on the head when a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon ripped down a street lamp says she’ll be back next year – with better seats.
“I love New York,” spunky Sarah Chamberlain declared at her home in Albany, N.Y., where she and her 26-year-old disabled sister, Mary, were recovering from their brush with disaster.
Macy’s has offered the Chamberlain family seats in the reserved bleacher section at the 2006 parade, and Sarah plans to accept, with one caveat.
“I want them to take down the light poles during the parade,” she said. “But I think the balloons should definitely stay.”
A 515-pound M&M balloon swayed out of control in gusty weather Thursday morning and snagged a 30-pound light fixture atop a lamppost.
The acorn-shaped lamp came down on Sarah and Mary in a near-tragic replay of a 1997 accident that seriously injured two women.
Sarah said she saw the balloon and its wires wafting toward the pole but didn’t realize she was in danger.
“I really didn’t know what happened,” she said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the creation of a city task force Friday to probe the cause of Thursday’s accident and recommend changes to safety guidelines before next year’s parade.
The panel will be headed by the city’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo, and Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Bruno. A similar commission investigated the 1997 calamity, creating rules governing the size of balloons, the training of volunteers and weather restrictions.
City officials have said it appears that Macy’s followed those procedures Thursday.
But John Kelly, a lawyer for one of the victims hurt in 1997, said Thursday’s accident “is one more wake-up call. … Any obstructions (along the route) need to be taken down.”
Macy’s promised full cooperation with the new city probe.
“We want to figure out a way to prevent this in the future,” said Elina Kazan, a spokeswoman for the department store.
It looks like Macy’s won’t have to pay nearly as steep a price for this year’s mishap as it did for the last one, in which the victim suffered brain damage and sued the retailer for millions.
Sarah and Mary’s father, Stephen Chamberlain, staff director for the Public Employees Federation, said the family has no intention of taking Macy’s or the city to court.
“To me, the lawsuit-lottery stuff is almost dishonest,” he said. “This was an accident. We’re just very thankful no one was seriously injured.”
Chamberlain said it appears the light fixture glanced off Sarah’s head, then bounced up into Mary, who has cerebral palsy and was sitting in a wheelchair at Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
A heavy plywood tray on the wheelchair protected her fragile body.
After the accident, Chamberlain said he was touched by the outpouring of support from emergency workers, hospital staffers and Macy’s officials.
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