This is the terrifying moment a woman and her two grandchildren narrowly avoided death after a manhole exploded. Lisa Davies was strolling down a pavement in New York after an Easter Egg hunt on Sunday when the manhole suddenly blew up right behind them and threw debris into the air.
Remarkably, the blast narrowly missed the grandmother and her two grandkids. “I was like, ‘oh my God, I don’t know’; I didn’t know where to go,” Lisa told ABC News. “I didn’t know what to do except grab my grandson and run. I couldn’t really run straight ahead of me to the corner because the manhole at the next corner blew up, too.”
At least three other manholes exploded following the initial explosion. Firefighters were dispatched to the scene in minutes and discovered high levels of gas in the craters left in the pavement.
Fortunately, the family were unharmed but Lisa admitted until the CCTV of the explosion was released she had no idea how close she was to death. “A foot, one foot of losing my family,” she said.
Although Lisa admits she’s still worried about walking on the pavement, her 6-year-old grandson was rather indifferent about the potentially dangerous explosion. “I’m kind of scared, but I wasn’t that scared,” he said.
It comes after the body of a woman was discovered down a 30ft manhole during a tragic search for her missing cat.
Emergency services worked through the night in December last year to find Elizabeth Pollard, 64, after she fell into a sinkhole in Unity Township in western Pennsylvania. Elizabeth’s disappearance triggered a massive rescue effort with dozens of officers and firefighters taking part in the search.
Elizabeth was last seen at about 5pm local time as she called out to her cat, Pepper. Family members then alerted police at about 1am the following day amid concerns she did not come home. Officers were seen searching in the area close to Monday’s Restaurant in the township and located her car parked close by at about 3am.
Trooper Stephen Limani of the Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement at the time: “We also discovered there was a sinkhole; it was maybe 15-20 feet from the vehicle.
“It was about the size of a manhole cover but the pocket underneath is significantly larger, and trying to send cameras down there, we determined it’s roughly about 30 feet before you see a lot of debris.”
However, just a day later it was confirmed her body had been tragically recovered.
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