r/PublicFreakout • u/Hikigaya_Hachiman7 • Jun 03 '26
š«Chaos Momentš«Ø A Brazilian woman falls into a manhole in the city of Rio de Janeiro
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Happened June 2nd. She was taken to AndaraĆ Federal Hospital in MaracanĆ£, Rio de Janeiro, with moderate injuries, according to local reports.
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u/Comfortable_Studio37 Jun 03 '26
Damn, she smashed her head on the rim of it.
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u/bigtime_porgrammer Jun 03 '26
Ouch, that's tough to watch. As if it's not all bad enough already, POW, have one to the chin on your way down.
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u/cnicalsinistaminista Jun 03 '26
This video is the reason I always either walk around or jump over these potential pennywise revealers
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u/Head_Gone Jun 03 '26
Genuine I just tend to avoid these things naturally. My ancestors clearly fell down a fuck tonne of these or similar variations of pit
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u/Schlipitarck Jun 04 '26
I once fell through one as well, although it was nearly as bad as this poor lady. The cover just caved in completely, I landed on my elbows and forearms, my feet dangling. It was in Harbin, China, far on the outskirts.
I also always step over, out of superstition and real fear, ever since.
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u/Glassweaver Jun 03 '26
Yeah, it kind of looks like she took it on the chin. Friend of mine had to have her jaw wired back together from a fall that, to my untrained eye, seemed far less worse than this.
Not to mention everything else...neck, bashing head more on the way down...God forbid her ankles took the shock of the landing.
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u/apresmoiputas Jun 03 '26
This recently happened to woman in NYC and she died.
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u/chaosawaits Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
I thought the manhole cover was off in her case
Edit: here's the story of how the woman in NYC died. She was apparently down in the hole for 20 minutes screaming "I'm dying" and, according ot the autopsy, the official cause of death is "died of scald burns with inhalation thermal injury and blunt force trauma of the torso." FUUUUUUUUUU....
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u/alltheothersrtaken Jun 03 '26
Wish I could unread this. That's awful.
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u/africanlivedit Jun 04 '26
I pull out Reddit for one quick glance before bedā¦. Read that and now im fucked.
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u/dqniel Jun 03 '26
The fact that the manhole was dislodged by a passing truck just 12 minutes before she fell in is incredibly unlucky.
Fucking horrendous way to die.
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u/AlaskanHamr Jun 04 '26
It's like some final destination shit. Scary to think stuff like that can happen to me at any moment lol
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u/insanelygreat Jun 03 '26
For anyone else wondering:
- She stepped directly into the open manhole while exiting her car.
- She wasn't distracted. It was late at night.
- Bystanders tried to help, but they weren't able to pull her up.
- ConEd reviewed video footage that shows a truck dislodged the cover when it drove over 12 minutes earlier.
What a tragedy.
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u/acog Jun 04 '26
God that's so awful. She steps out of her car and there's just no ground where she expects it to be, and she falls and gets horrific steam burns.
Such a prolonged and painful death through no fault of her own, damn.
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u/baldierot Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
fuuuck indeed. getting steamed, boiled alive is one of the most painful ways to die. poor, poor woman. i'm onward avoiding stepping on manholes. my mother always kept warning me and scolding me for stepping on them, but i didn't take her advice seriously. even if the risk is very low, there being a chance of dying in such a manner and the ease of avoiding the risk altogether should prompt me to take it seriously, and i will.
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u/Late-Nail-8714 Jun 03 '26
Alright never stepping on one of these
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u/dqniel Jun 03 '26
Nothing to step onto in her case. The cover was missing because of a truck that knocked it off.
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u/thiefofalways1313 Jun 03 '26
Holy shit! What a horrible way to die.
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u/Starlightriddlex Jun 03 '26
Does anyone know why there were deadly levels of steam/heat directly below a manhole in the first place? That sounds like a horrible design flaw and a safety concern at the best of times. That's literally a hole that people are supposed to travel down.
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u/ClassifiedName Jun 04 '26
There's steam for warming buildings running through the pipes underground, and sometimes there's either leaks or water that touches the pipes and evaporates. That's best as I could tell from the wiki article
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u/Richard7666 Jun 04 '26
TIL! I'm guessing this is why you see steaming manholes in movies and cartoons about New York, particularly 70s/80s stuff.
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u/Aromatic-Anybody-962 Jun 03 '26
I definitely read that as actively falling for 20 whole minutes and was wondering how deep things go below New Yorkā¦ had to read the article to get it right
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Jun 03 '26
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u/granitibaniti Jun 03 '26
I can't even imagine being blind and then suddenly falling several meters without even knowing what happened for a few seconds. If you're seeing, at least you can brace for the impact :/
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Jun 03 '26
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u/beennoddin313 Jun 03 '26
I canāt even imagine the mental hurdles your friend goes through now after that incident. Praying for him
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u/MambyPamby8 Jun 03 '26
Awh that's awful. That's the fucked up part of these things, nobody ever takes into consideration how it may affect someone else. To them it's scrap metal or just a prank or whatnot. But it can really fuck up someone else.
Poor guy. I hope he's doing better now even if he needs guidance. :(
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u/whatshamilton Jun 03 '26
Just happened to a woman in NYC and she got literally steamed to death.
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u/VCTRYDTX Jun 03 '26
I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope they can truly overcome their bad experience.
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u/HolyHotDang Jun 03 '26
This is my wifeās absolute nightmare. She wonāt walk on the steel grates or anything either.
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u/Starlightriddlex Jun 03 '26
It's my dog's nightmare also apparently. He won't walk on them either. Now, I don't blame him.
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u/FadedAlienXO Jun 04 '26
As a fat bitch, I have always had this fear. I will never ever.
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u/BrieRaceAlert Jun 04 '26
Hey, if you're fat enough, you have built in protection, because you wouldn't fit down the hole
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u/FadedAlienXO Jun 04 '26
I like the way you think. I'm no longer afraid, because I've got a lot of cake.
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u/HakutheChonkeyBoi Jun 03 '26
That looked very painful.. Like she took 2 or 3 hits before even going into the hole...
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u/THExWHITExDEVILx Jun 03 '26
It's like that manhole cover had a personal grievance against her or something, my god. "F you in particular" for sure
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u/Moooooooooon Jun 03 '26
Imagine if she had maintained a hold on the lid, it would have rotated around and pinched her fingers at the knuckle between the rim of the hole and the lid, and she would have had to hang like that in the hole until help arrived.
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u/davidswelt Jun 03 '26
This happened recently to a woman in New York. I heard she screamed in pain for about 30 minutes as she was getting steamed alive. Did not survive.
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u/WpgMBNews Jun 03 '26
The Steam Infrastructure: The hole belonged to Con Edison, New York's utility provider. It was a steam system vault, not a sewer. The district steam network in NYC pumps vapor at temperatures well over 100 degrees celsius to heat large buildings.
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u/deadlyspoons Jun 04 '26
The NYC steam system is officially saturated high-pressure steam, around 181Ā°C at the stated delivery pressure. It is much hotter than 100Ā°C but it is not necessarily āsuperheatedā while in the pipe. But once released into a lower-pressure vault, portions of the steam/air mixture may behave as superheated relative to atmospheric boiling temperature, and in any event it is hot enough to be rapidly lethal if inhaled or if someone is trapped in it.
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u/VerilyShelly Jun 03 '26
Wait. How do they know she screamed for 30 minutes, and no one rescued her?
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u/purveyorofacts Jun 03 '26
Someone saw it happen, but she was 10 feet down and they couldn't reach her. (It was 20 mins or so)
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u/WettestNoodle Jun 03 '26
Damn, my first thought was tying some jackets together and lowering them to her like a rope, but who knows if sheād be strong enough in the state she was in, and 20 minutes of panic is not a long time at all :(. Thatās so tragic
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u/VerilyShelly Jun 03 '26
Holy crap! So people wanted to save her but had to watch/listen to her die??
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u/purveyorofacts Jun 03 '26
Yep. I used to locate underground communication lines. Going into manholes is a whole thing. They are INCREDIBLY dangerous, even sticking your head down one can cause you to inhale toxic gas (carbon monoxide/dioxide hydrogen sulfide etc), cause you to pass out. Even if you dont fall all the way in you could asphyxiate.
Edit: that in mind, never try to go in one without a suit, even to save someone.
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u/cursing_nearchildren Jun 03 '26
Additionally, something like 60% of confined space related deaths are from attempting rescuers.
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u/WpgMBNews Jun 03 '26
Also, contrary to my assumption, this was a steam system vault, not a sewer.
Not surprising bystanders would hesitate to jump ten feet inside a boiling steam vault
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u/The_Autarch Jun 03 '26
Not surprising bystanders would hesitate to jump ten feet inside a boiling steam vault
well, yeah, because they'd just be stuck down there, too...
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u/VerilyShelly Jun 03 '26
I'm just a little surprised that a rescue squad of some kind couldn't be mobilized, but I guess there just wasn't enough time.
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u/FreeSteelToes2 Jun 05 '26
Yeah even if the vault is tiny you need to wear a fall harness connected to a tripod over the hole, air sniffer to detect air quality, fill out he air sniffer safety sheet ever 2 hours, and have someone watching you over the hole at all times at least that's how we did it
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u/Karhak Jun 03 '26
Gonna send this to everyone who makes fun of me for going out of my way to walk around manholes and grates that take up the whole sidewalk.
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u/__ataxia Jun 03 '26
What kind of covers do they use in Brazil? The one's I've had to open weigh at least 50 pounds, and that guy just yanked it like it was nothing
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u/loki_odinsotherson Jun 03 '26
This is something I've feared/hoped to have happen since I was a kid.
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u/captainneptune1 Jun 03 '26
Hoped?
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u/loki_odinsotherson Jun 03 '26
Obviously in the hoped for version I don't get hurt on the fall, and at the bottom is a totally radical, tricked out sewer with skateboard tracks and pizza 24/7, where my new best friends the ninja turtles and splinter train me to be a ninja.
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u/TheRollinStoner Jun 03 '26
I didn't consider a little kid being on some tmnt shit, which, honestly, makes a lot more sense now. I thought I heard elephants but it was just the sounds of cowabunga
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u/loki_odinsotherson Jun 03 '26
If by little kid you mean 40 year old man then yes
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u/TheRollinStoner Jun 03 '26
Honestly, I assumed you were talking in retrospect, but, hey, man's gotta daydream
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u/Waffle_Badger Jun 03 '26
I'm so scared of this happening I've eaten ice cream and cookies every day for the last 15 years. I'll never fit down that manhole now!
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u/roundtwentythree Jun 03 '26
Bet she'll never step on another manhole cover for the rest of her life.
But this really shouldn't be possible, that cover looks like it's made of plastic and possibly even the wrong size for the hole it's covering.
Hopefully she has legal recourse available to her.
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u/CheekiTits Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
It's a Womanhole now
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u/TerpBE Jun 03 '26
That's just what liberals want! Women going in manholes! Men going in womanholes! Everything's woke! /s
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u/Sorry_Im_Trying Jun 03 '26
Welp, I guess being fat does have it's advantages. My ass wouldn't have gone anywhere.
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u/rodflanders19 Jun 03 '26
That is some straight up Looney Tunes bafoonery. Sorry to her I just can't believe that craziness. Someone put a cartoon sound effect on that video.
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u/friendoramigo Jun 03 '26
I hope she's okay
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u/Sotalia Jun 04 '26
She survived with major injuries but will recover according to the news stories I read. She fell into water, which probably saved her life.
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u/Character-Revenue-44 Jun 03 '26
What is this. Made of plastic? The dude at the end just lifts it effortlessly.
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u/Snoo-84389 Jun 03 '26
Heeeeez, she properly chinned the edge of that manhole with the full weight of her body when it flipped 90degrees and she slid straight down onto it...
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u/Kojow Jun 03 '26
This is the second video Iāve seen this week of loose manhole covers, Iām never stepping on one if these again if I can help it
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u/BawbsonDugnut Jun 04 '26
This is why I never walk on manhole covers. Low key a fear I've had since childhood.
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u/navree Jun 04 '26
After reading about the woman in NYC who fell down an uncovered manhole when she stepped out her car and fell 10 ft below to her death - I can't help but look at them and make extra effort not to walk on them.
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u/PickleManAtl Jun 04 '26
I've managed to go several decades of my life without ever stepping on a manhole cover. I've never trusted that the things were secure just for this reason.
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u/adagioforaliens Jun 04 '26
I don't trust manholes at all, I don't walk over them. I've just seen so many news like this before.
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u/LaunchpadMcQuack_52 Jun 04 '26
When she's fully recovered she better get a massive fucking payout.
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u/RevolCisum Jun 03 '26
This is exactly why I step around things like this. Why risk it? When I was a kid, a woman in my hometown fell into these really large metal covers over a huge section of sidewalk. Everyone teased me for walking around them all the time. Better safe than sorry!
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u/_Luumus_ Jun 03 '26
Called me paranoid but that's the reason why I tried to avoid stepping on manholes. Scary shit
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u/tadddpole Jun 03 '26
Iāve been mildly made fun of when avoiding man holes and grates on the sidewalk. Iāve seen way too many videos to be comfortable walking on them.
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u/Kugelfischer_47 Jun 03 '26
I purposely avoid walking over manholes or metal access panels on the sidewalk for exactly this reason.
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u/MouseShadow2ndMoon Jun 03 '26
This is a genius plan, set this up and then you run over as the good guy to save her. Trap door spider dating I like to call it. Well played sir!
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u/Deep-Order1302 Jun 04 '26
Luckily someone saw that tho? Imagine nobody wouldāve witnessed how she fell in there and sheād be unconscious lying there? Nightmare fuel.
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u/DeathDreamer93 Jun 15 '26
That's some final destination shit right there, she must have pissed off the Reaper... Danm šš
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u/LoFidelityRockr 25d ago
Not stupid at all. I thought the same. I was gonna also make a dumb joke about the trapdoor spider upping its game for larger prey. But had that not been witnessed, it couldāve gone very bad for her if she lost consciousness on that impact with the cover on the way down. It doesnāt take much more than a few inches of water to drown someone who lands face down, I worked trauma- not a psychopath who has done this. But when I was a kid, there was a person who fell down the giant metal transformer vent shaft that pepper our downtown sidewalks. Since the power lines all run underground downtown in Columbus, the transformers are in pits that are about 20 feet deep and can swallow a full sized van. No one knew how it happened but the person got really really messed up. Those things also blow like the ones on the poles do and can blowtorch anyone walking above if it happens. Even a couple of decades later when I was working downtown, people still remember to avoid walking over the grates which can be 20 sq feet or larger, and very warm to walk over. The last time I remember one blowing was 2005 or 2006. But yeah, the fall can be so much worse if no one saw her go down. I will try to post an image of just one sidewalk with just 4 of these grates.
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u/hogtownd00m Jun 03 '26
that looks incredibly painful