Woman dies after falling into uncovered New York City manhole

A pistillate has died aft stepping retired of her car and falling 10 ft (three metres) down an uncovered attraction spread connected Fifth Avenue successful New York City, constabulary person said.

Officers responded to an exigency telephone successful Manhattan and recovered the pistillate unconscious and unresponsive down the manhole conscionable earlier midnight connected Monday.

The woman, identified by constabulary arsenic Donike Gocaj, 56, of Briarcliff Manor, New York, was taken to a section hospital, wherever she was pronounced dead, the New York Police Department said.

The inferior institution told US media that, aft reviewing video footage, they judge the screen of the manhole was dislodged by a truck.

"Approximately 12 minutes later, the idiosyncratic progressive successful the incidental parked her car nearby," a spokesperson for inferior institution Con Edison told the BBC's media spouse CBS.

"We are reviewing the details, and portion this is simply a uncommon occurrence, manhole covers tin get displaced by dense vehicles. Our thoughts stay with her family, and information remains our apical priority."

The BBC has contacted Con Edison for further comment.

Gocaj's household told CBS astatine the country of the incidental connected Tuesday that they are trying to recognize however the calamity could person taken place.

The woman's daughter-in-law, visibly shaken arsenic she spoke, said determination were nary cones, informing signs, oregon barriers astir the attraction hole.

There is an ongoing investigation, constabulary said, though nary transgression enactment is suspected astatine this time.

The metropolis aesculapian examiner's bureau volition find the origin of death.

Open manholes are a communal contented successful the city.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection manages the city's h2o proviso and wastewater infrastructure, including thousands of miles of sewer lines and astir 100,000 progressive manholes, according to its website.

The section has received much than 700 work requests regarding unfastened manholes truthful acold this year, the New York Times reports.