A 10-year-old boy from Cape Breton is recovering at home after being struck by a parade float during Pride celebrations in Sydney, N.S.

During the biggest parade in history for Pride Cape Breton, which featured over 80 entries and hundreds of people lining the streets, everything came to a standstill.

"We had stopped for a bit, and when a parade stops, you think there might be traffic and stuff like that," says BJ Singleton, the director of communications for the Pride Cape Breton Society. "So we were waiting and waiting. Once we hit 15 minutes, I knew something was wrong and then I heard word there was an incident."

The incident was soon revealed to have involved a 10-year-old boy who was struck by the wheel of a parade float, causing Singleton to run nearly a kilometre to the scene.

"Your heart just sinks into your stomach because you're worried for the family and the person that got injured,"he says.

Fortunately, the boy's injuries were minor, and he was released shortly after being taken to hospital.

"Two hours after the incident, we were at the park and received a message via Facebook from his mom with a photo of his from the hospital with his thumbs up smiling," says Singleton. "She said he wanted to let us know directly that he was doing well and was in good spirits."

Cape Breton Pride volunteer and CTV Sydney employee, Amy MacNeil, says this year's pride festivities have been well attended, but says the incident is unfortunate.

"We have a board of eight volunteers that make up Pride Cape Breton – the work of those eight people has been tremendous," says MacNeil. "So we're trying to figure out more and more things we can do better."

Singleton says one improvement Cape Breton Pride will be addressing is safety; noting although they followed the new rules and regulations put in place for parades, they want to make sure all precautions are in place.

"It's shocking when something like this happens," says Singleton. "It just goes to show even though these rules have been shared and talked about, they are new and still need to be demonstrated to the public as much as possible."

Meanwhile, Pride Cape Breton is planning to send the boy a special gift and is thankful the situation wasn't a lot worse.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore