Staten Island manhole swallows texting teen

Darwin must be spinning

What should have been another triumph for Darwinian evolution is now going to turn into an opportunity for an undeserved cash-grab.

Deary me.

I sympathise.

"Oh my God, it was putrid. One of her sneakers is still down there."

My eldest son's sneakers are also capable of making a sewer putrid, must be a teen thing.

Not surprised to hear this

Kids and young adults walk along texting without being aware of anything going on around them. Young mothers with babies in pushchairs are the worst. They push the baby straight out onto the road in front of them because they don't see the road, then there is a blast from car horns and a screech of brakes as drivers try and avoid hitting the pushchair. Then the mother screams at the drivers telling them they should look where they are going, when it is the mother at fault.

I'm surprised there aren't more deaths and serious injuries from this.

Texting whilst walking should be against the law.

WTF?

Mum Kim Longueira says the fact her daughter was absorbed in texting "makes no difference". So sorry but that made all the difference! Advise your daughter to try looking where she's going next time.

meh

"Ms Longueira suffered nothing more than scrapes to her arms and back in the incident, although the Longueira family says it intends to sue."

Of course they do, its America. They sue for everything.

Of course they'll sue...

Free lunch alert !

Oops

oh wait.... some witless teen txting on a mobile ..... got it..... phew close one!

Hmmmm...

Entertaining but I'm yet to see an IT angle.

What...? You didn't say we couldn't moan about the lack of IT!

Only in America

Of COURSE she intends to sue!

1) Kid doesn't watch where she's going. Kid falls down manhole. Kid's footwear is so ineffectively attached to her feet that it is still in the sewer - either that or she had time to remove her securely fastened "sneaker" while she was down there.

2) Kid suffers scrapes and bruises.

3) Mum jumps on the litigious bandwagon even though no real harm was done, sues DEP for lack of foresight and lack of responsibility in protecting her hapless daughter who didn't have the foresight to watch where she was going! Both sides were at fault but hey... it must be someone else's fault, right?

4) PROFIT!! Oh, wait....

What "damages" is she hoping to claim, exactly? The cost of a plaster, a pair of "sneakers" and some antiseptic cream? Oh and some Ariel to get the clothes clean. Let's not forget the almost unimaginable trauma. Let's call it $200, tops.

Is it REALLY worth paying the lawyers more than that and wasting everyone's time when nothing of note really happened? Laugh it off as what happens when you don't pay attention, enjoy the rest of your life.

The mother clearly has no sense of perspective.

lol

what a shocker, that they are going to sue for bumps and bruises !!!

but tbh they prolly should of got the cones etc before opening it !

and anyway think of it this way Kim Longueira your daughter may not walk into busy traffic whilst textign she may of learnt an important lesson that only cost her a few scrapes !!!

but funney none the less

How American...

"Oh noes, i wasnt watching where i was going and did something stupid - it MUST be someone else's fault!"

Sueing

Can you sue a hospital in the US if you have a unattrctive baby?

What?

They said sorry and accepted liability at the scene of the accident? What kind of training do these guys have? They are going to get sued seven ways from Sunday.

"Where there's blame, there's a claim" or something.

Obvious

Of course they intend to sue, as that's an indication of her families attitude she should have stayed down the sewer and moved her family in with her.

Important info missing

But.. what type of phone was it? Clearly not the iphone since that would have enabled her to walk on water. We need to know.

Good idea

This is the sort of policy New Labour should be introducing over here. Leave all the manhole covers off to catch the inconsiderate little bastards that insist on trying to walk into me. It must happen four or more times every lunch time. It will catch the morons that use their umbrellas/big-tops-on-a-stick as battering rams when it's raining as well.

And can we have large brown bears at the bottom of the manholes?

what kind of idiot

opens a manhole in a public street and then walks off - even for a moment?

A good idea

I think it's a spiffing idea to litter the entire United States with these Elmer deviouring sesspit portals. Bring it on I say!

Darwinian evolution should have been allowed to run its course

by dropping the lid on top of the clueless kid.

I saw the present and I didn't like it.

When I started like reading this I was totally OMG that's so not cool but then I thought like whatever it's stupid-ass to not notice and things, you know?

Must. Control. Rage.

"Ms Longueira suffered nothing more than scrapes to her arms and back in the incident, although the Longueira family says it intends to sue."

Not enough injury to cause actual loss (in terms of medical bills or lost earnings) and she was not looking where she was going. Any decision to sue is purely based on greed and a desire to exploit the screwed up legal system in the US. This sort of thing fills me with so much rage I just want to rip her face off and use it as a funny mask for my cat.

GAWD BLESS THE USA!!

Land of the Litigious, and home of the Multimillion Dollar Settlements....

Who know maybe this Girl now the power to go to Harvard and become the President someday because of this!!

Welcome to the USA!!

@Chris 219

"What "damages" is she hoping to claim, exactly? The cost of a plaster, a pair of "sneakers" and some antiseptic cream?"

Nope, there's just one sneaker that needs replacing.

"Let's call it $200, tops."

Oh we can but hope, but sadly methinks it'll be a lot more than that. And some poor mug will lose his job for a split second mistake. And the 'I shouldn't need to look where I'm going' waste of oxygen will learn nothing.

What the Yanks (and potentially the UK - we're teetering on the edge) is a group of people that sue every single stupid claim for waste of public/court money/time. Unfortunately it'd probably end up hoisted by its own petard.

she has every right to sue

Even 30 years ago when I was working on telecom underground plant we had to put cones out and road signs around our manholes before lifting the covers. We also had to use pedestrian barriers if on a pavement.

OK, so some sighted people have their heads in the clouds. But imagine what it's like for someone with visual impairments to encounter a hole in the ground where there wasn't one before.

Beware...

Next we will be hearing rumours of giant sneakers living in the Staten Island sewers.

Just look up Peter Norton on viruses, and there's the IT angle...

It already had one? Damn, mine's the one with the DOS 3.1 boot disc in the pocket.

For the record.....

This is not your "typcial American". As much as commentards enjoy being snide towards anything having to do with our country, please realize that you only ever hear of the stupid people in the papers over here. It is journalism for entertainment not information. That all Americans sue when there is the slightest mishap is as accurate as "All Brits are missing most of their teeth, have huge floppy ears, and speak a near unintelligable language that they refer to as Proper English".

Not much of a surprise I suppose seeing how you hate your own country as much as you hate ours (from a generalized standpoint via these same boards).

Yes the mother is an idiot, as is the teen. I hope if they do sue that the court throws out the case and orders them pay for the money wasted even considering this for trial.

and again

Sue the pants off the negligent bar-stewards!

Yup, more of the same.. We're going that way too now.. (uk).. shame really.. No more dusting off the clothes, patting ourselves down, having a quick laugh before hobbling off with head held high. That's the British Way, quite right

Mines the one with Modern Etiquette in it the pocket

@copsewood

"But imagine what it's like for someone with visual impairments to encounter a hole in the ground where there wasn't one before."

I'd imagine the white stick or the guide dog would have alerted them to the danger. Much like they would have been unable to see the cones, or just trip over them and fall head first down the hole.

They should sue!

If I fell down a bloody manhole I would never step on another one as long as I live.

Also it could have been a lot worse and understandably traumatic.

Leaving a manhole open is fucking stupid and someone needs to be disciplined.

If this was an old granny or a toddler you'd all be up in arms about how wrong it was of the workmen.

You put up cones FIRST, then lift the covers...

This has nothing to do with her texting, it has more to do with common sense. You secure your work area first from intrusion before you start work, i.e. you put cones and barriers in place BEFORE you lift the manhole cover.

That's common sense. Looks like some commentards on here seem to forget that.

Suing is stupid, but the threat alone is worth the company changing its practices to a more common-sensical approach.

@Bassey

"Leave all the manhole covers off to catch the inconsiderate little bastards that insist on trying to walk into me. It must happen four or more times every lunch time."

Don't happen to live in Leeds, do you?

OTOH, maybe not. Four near misses per lunchtime is way too low. If the council left manhole covers open round here, the sewers would fill up in minutes. Nowhere else have I ever seen such a concentration of people who don't look where they're going. Comparing Leeds with London, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Birmingham, Southampton, Bristol, Nottingham and Bournemouth, this place stands proud as the City of the Blind.

@John Curry

"So let's just check - had this Manhole cover been left unattended, and let's say someone with a physical or mental disability had fallen down the hole, would you have the same reaction?"

Don't we all have our disabilities? But most disabled do make an effort to pay attention to world and dog, so they are a whole bit less annoying than the careless teen.

If the able play disabled we should be allowed to laugh!

...and stations!

What is is about mobiles and morons? They walk along in a complete daze, the only thing on their mind is the little gadget in their hands. The sole reason for their existence, the gadget must be obeyed, all hail the gadget, their lives would collapse in under two seconds without that lifeline.

I hate getting off the tube and crossing over to the mainline in London these days, as the minute the phone connects back to the network, the world just stops for the feckless morons. They stop being able to think logically ( if they ever did anyway! ), they stop walking and just tune into "the gadget". You feel like pushing them under a train just to teach them that there are other people about, the world does not revolve around them, the rest of us can still live without " a gadget". I think I have made a total of 5 mins of calls in the last 2 weeks on my mobile, I can live without mine!

I would hope...

.... that the family just takes a small sum of money to replace sneakers/cloths, pay medical bills (which no doubt will be huge) and a little compo. I would also hope that they insist the guy(s) responsible get a good shoe-ing and keep their jobs. Ok, ok, it was a school boy H&S mistake which could have been a lot worse but no-one was badly hurt and I very much doubt they would ever make the same mistake again.

Then again, this is me also hoping that people can be ‘reasonable’ these days.

Rich

(a big eared, toothless Englishman)

Paris - because I bet she'd employ the sacked DEP guys to flush out her man hole

No correlation at all

There is no correlation between not looking where you are going and falling flat on your face/arse/down a hole, in fact everything should be padded and shielded just in case Darwin is proven correct.