Posted on 05/21/2026 3:50:28 PM PDT by xxqqzz
Her death triggered fears for New Yorkers and visitors alike, and now it's been revealed just how the woman who fell into an open manhole in midtown Manhattan died.
Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Donike Gocaj parked her SUV on the side of 52nd Street near Fifth Avenue, out front of the Cartier store. The 56-year-old got out of her vehicle, closed the door -- and fell into an uncovered 10-foot-deep manhole.
Gocaj died from her injuries in what Con Edison said was a freak accident. The utility company said surveillance footage suggests a large truck dislodged a manhole cover by driving over it — a rare event, but something Con Ed acknowledged does happen.
While it's not known just how a truck can dislodge a manhole cover, what is known is just how died. The city's medical examiner ruled the death an accident, and determined she died as a result of scald burns with inhalational thermal injury, along with blunt force injury to her chest.
The manhole didn't appear to be uncovered for long. Con Ed said that the surveillance video shows Gocaj parking her car near the manhole about 12 minutes after a multi-axle truck appears to dislodge the cover.
A source within City Hall said Con Edison had an open permit to conduct work on the block at the time of the deadly incident. The utility company is responsible for manhole coverings, the source said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnewyork.com ...
its how NYC heats their streets,
Lawsuit & settlement to follow.
Manhole cover scenes in movies can be funny as they treat them like little 5 pound discs that you just lift up and set aside or lift up with your head while peeking around or just climb the rings and casually lift it off when exiting.
It’s pretty funny watching people in movies handle gold bars, too.
Watch any movie where people are out and around NYC day or night. You will see steam coming out up opening in the pavement and the sidewalks. Sometimes the steam is so thick it is like billowing clouds.
That this was an almost unique freak incident with a truck dislodging a manhole cover, explains why manholes covers are not bolted down.
It is like a 1 in a million or 1 in 10 million chance of happening. It is almost unheard of for a manhole cover that is correctly fit and in place to just get bounced out of its supports.
I guess bolting them down woujld prevent that 1 in a million tragedy like this lady, but it does validly explain why they aren’t bolted down. There is typically no need. Typically.
Inhalation thermal injury sounds excruciating — your very windpipe and lungs feel like they’re on fire, and yet you MUST breathe.
Maybe there is something wrong with this manhole rim or cover. And that made it susceptible to this fault.
This goes back to that advice that every parent gives to their children... Look where you going.
If you don’t, bad things can obviously happen.
Now that you mention it, I have seen that in films over the years, I just assumed it was theatrical fog effect to enhance a scene in a movie. I never heard of heated sidewalks before!
It’s one of those things where you can’t imagine it happening to you and that if it ever does happen, it could only happen to somebody else. How terrible to have that happen to anyone. It has to be just dumb luck and bad timing. Just the idea that if she had worn a different pair of shoes that day or left the house a minute early...It doesn’t seem fair.
Very possibly. I’ve also seen some that were not completely tamped down, or ran over a few that clanked loudly when cars ran over them showing they weren’t secured.
I suppose it could happen if the manhole rim was warped, or working loose from its bedding in the pavement, or if somehow a manhole cover got bent slightly (if that’s even possible). Seems extremely unlikely, though, if everything’s straight and true and properly installed.
I’ll probably never know.
“I didn’t know there was scaling water and steam in a manhole. I’ve never seen that before, is it a New York thing?”
Yea NYC has a district heating system where steam is pumped to buildings under considerable pressure three pipes are old and leak, all over the City you see plumes rising out of manholes and also stacks they put over the manholes to raise the steam above head level.
When Formula cars race on city streets, the manhole covers are welded shut. Aerodynamics of the cars create “downforce” which can lift the covers.
Yes. She cooked. TERRIBLE!
Exactly. Con Ed is preemptively creating a story to blame a truck doing normal truck stuff instead of negligent workers who forgot to properly replace the cover.
They ship their man hole covers all over the world. It was cool to see some when I was stationed in Panama back in 1970.
ya, even in midwesten cities thye do the same thing
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