TUCSON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- A 5-year-old girl died during a Tucson parade when horses pulling a wagon trampled her and the horse she was riding.
Brielle Boisvert, of Sonoita, Mexico, was riding Thursday with the Sonoita Rodeo Royalty after being crowned "Little Miss" over the summer. Her horse was the last of the group and the closest to the wagon behind them when its horses panicked and ran her over, the Arizona Daily Star reported.
"I feel terrible for the parents because they were right there when it happened -- they walked the whole route," Shelly Scriven, a witness and mother of one of the other girls in the Sonoita procession, said in the newspaper article.
Steve Lindsey, pastor of the Canelo Cowboy Church, which the Boisvert family attends, said the girl's mother, Donnell, and father, Tom, were praying for hours after Brielle's death.
"I was with (Donnell) and she said the outpouring of love of those who watched what happened ... the compassion was so great and she wants to thank those people," Lindsey told the Daily Star.
