Amish Grandma & Visiting Grandson Were The 2 Killed In New York Buggy Crash; Fundraiser Launched For Family

New details have been released on a deadly September 13 buggy crash in St. Lawrence County, New York.

The two people killed when a pickup truck struck the buggy outside Canton, New York were a young boy visiting from Michigan and his grandmother.

The crash had many victims, and I wondered at the time if there weren’t a good number of children inside, given the sheer number of people taken to hospital.

Now we have more clarity on who was in the buggy – and yes, it was apparently just a single buggy involved. MYNBC5 describes the two killed as “a four-year-old boy and 78-year-old Margaret Wagler”, and gives further details:

The other eight people in the buggy were taken to area hospitals for treatment.

As of Sept. 23, two of the victims remain hospitalized, including a five-year-old girl in stable condition and a 35-year-old woman in critical condition.

No charges have been filed at this time. An investigation is still underway.

That report and others are saying that the boy and his grandmother are “both of Canton.” However, there is a fundraiser, organized by neighbors of the victims, which says differently, while giving some additional information on what happened:

The Amish community experienced a horrific accident on Sunday 13 September when a buggy containing 10 Amish family members was hit by a truck on Rt. 25 in Canton.

The accident occurred on a flat section of road during the day. A young boy visiting from Michigan was killed at the scene, and the boy’s grandmother, from Canton, later died at the hospital.

That detail about the boy visiting from Michigan is coming from neighbors of the families, which I would take to be a closer source in this case. The discrepancy may have occurred if the boy was listed under a Canton address in a police report.

The fundraiser is for the families of Daniel and Henry Wagler, brothers who live on Little River Road, a road near where the crash happened. More on that:

We are fundraising for the families of brothers Daniel and Henry Wagler of Little River Rd., whose lives were tragically affected that day and will bear significant financial burdens due to the stifling costs of unimaginable medical expenses including critical medical care for multiple family members, current and long-term physical therapy, plus transportation costs to regional hospitals.

It’s not said how the brothers are related to the boy and his grandmother, but I’d assume there is direct relation and these are the two related families affected.

This reporting gives further clarity as to what happened. In earlier reporting it was unclear how many victims there were, with the figure eventually landing on nine people. Now it seems there were a total of ten victims. Two are still in the hospital, with one still in critical condition.

How To Donate To The Wagler Family

Neighbors Susan Willson and Val White are organizing the GoFundMe fundraiser. It’s not uncommon for English neighbors to help Amish families, who are typically not that online, or in the habit of asking for non-Amish help, with this sort of thing.  Here’s how they say they’ll handle the funds:

All funds will be donated to the Wagler family by myself (Susan Willson) and neighbor Val White, so everything is 100% transparent with funds donated to this account.

We are both neighbors of the Wagler families on Little River Rd. We will give the family the donation as either a check or cash, whatever they prefer.

As of posting, over $6,500 has been raised for the families. If you’d like to donate, you can do so here, or via the embedded GoFundMe widget below.