A terrible story. I’ve been scalded by steam, not very badly but it was a really painful type of burn.
Two things seem odd about this incident. First, how a truck could completely dislodge a manhole cover if the cover was properly placed entirely within the supporting ring. Many, many trucks drive over manhole covers every day without shifting the covers at all. Perhaps someone stole the manhole cover, but then the surveillance video should have shown that. Second, I’d think that a lethal amount of steam would send up a pretty big cloud out of the open manhole cover.
I think there’s more to this story than we know yet.
There was security footage showing the truck dislodged it.