Sidewalk Grate Fall Victim: "Get Me Out Of Here!"

Everyone is still wondering how a woman fell through a sidewalk grate and into a electrical power vault on West 51st Street yesterday morning. The Daily News reports the victim, 26-year-old Jessica Hinksmon, could have been electrocuted by the 13,000 volts of electricity from the transformer. Hinksmon cried for help before firefighters used a "confined space stretcher and tripod" to lift her out. One of the firefighters who rescued Hinksmon, Lit. Tom Donnelly of Rescue 1, told the Post, "It's a scary thing to be surrounded by almost a foot of mud and electricity."

Con Ed is investigating why the grate, which helps cool the transformer, gave way. It sounds a like a freak accident, but given these responses from Con Ed, is it just us or do they sound less empathetic and more CYA?

Spokesman Chris Olert: "It was an accident, we apologize to [the victim], but why it happened we don't know. You would have to hit a certain spot on [the transformer] to be shocked or burnt. It's not as if the whole thing is dangerous."
Spokesman Alfonso Quiroz: "You can't lift one of these things with your bare hands. It's very heavy. They are very safe and there are thousands of them around the city."

Hinksmon is in stable condition at NY Presbyterian, with injuries to her neck, back, wrist and knee. You can see video of the fall here, and the News has a diagram. And amNY wonders if the the city is too scary and too much like Fear Factor these days, given the pipe that fell from the Deutsche Bank and other things in our dense living space. For any fearmongers, one professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell says, "With all the things that could go wrong, it's more amazing they don't."

Photographs from 1010 WINS

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By Jen Chung in News on May 18, 2007 10:25 AM

Comments [rss]

Dan

They see the lawsuit flying at them at 675 mph.

Current

High voltage doesn't kill. High current kills. Remember, it's the volts that jolt and the mills that kills.

Tim N.

"...It's not as if the whole thing is dangerous."

Yeah, just the part with live electricity.

Dumb as a box of hair.

kain

Glad to hear she wasn't hurt badly and is doing okay, but I wonder how much money she's going to get from this...

Javier

LAWSUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEAH BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Brightliner

It's not amazing that things don't go wrong more often. It is amazing that people make such a big deal out of freak accidents. You're more likely to be hit by lightning. Or a small plane flown by a Yankee.

mike

Hey check out more free video coverage here:

www.thenewsroom.com/details/31...

Mash it to your site, its free!

DaveH

That quote from the psychiatry prof is the most rational thing I've read recently.

matukonyc

Yes, I, too, "wonder" how an accident could possibly happen in a city of more than eight million people... shocking!

a

I fell through a concrete slab into a drainage basin once. Damn near broke my leg. It was on a local school property. We called and told the county about it. Next week, sure enough, they had placed both pieces of broken slab back over it, awaiting its next victim.

I'm scared to walk over grates now.