Last night, the FDNY rescued a man who fell into a Con Ed manhole on West 3rd Street at Mercer in Manhattan. According to NBC New York, "Witnesses at the scene said the man went around orange cones apparently set up by the utility Consolidated Edison when he fell into the hole." Why would he do something so dumb? Con Ed workers say he'd just groped a woman, and was trying to run away.
The Post reports, "The man tumbled some 15 feet into the ConEd construction pit on West Third Street near Mercer Street at about 8 p.m. While the man was lying stunned at the bottom of the hole, a woman came up and accused him of groping her moments earlier, according to workers at the site." A Con Ed worker told the Post, "A woman came up to us very distraught... She was, like, a man came up to her. She said he groped her. So we said, ‘Where is he at?’ And he’s right here.'" The worker added, "The hole was open. It was barricaded. The guy was under the influence of I don’t know what."
After about 15 minutes the FDNY extricated the man out of the hole and took him to Bellevue with minor injuries. It's unclear if the woman filed a complaint.
