{"id":239201,"date":"2026-05-21T12:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239201\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:27:08","slug":"woman-who-fell-into-con-ed-manhole-in-nyc-died-from-scald-burns-blunt-force-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/239201\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman who fell into Con Ed manhole in NYC died from scald burns, blunt force trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-block-key=\"w5153\">A woman who fell into an open Con Edison manhole in Midtown earlier this week died from heat injuries and blunt force trauma, city medical examiners said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"6r7aj\">The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Donike Gocaj, 56, died of \u201cscald burns with inhalational thermal injury and blunt force trauma of [the] torso,\u201d according to a spokesperson.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"9lmqv\">The office ruled her manner of death an accident.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"bmpoq\">Gocaj <a href=\"https:\/\/gothamist.com\/news\/woman-dies-after-falling-down-con-edison-manhole-in-midtown-police-say\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">died after falling about 10 feet down the manhole<\/a> near Fifth Avenue and East 52nd Street on Monday night, police said.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"b9j8g\">NYPD officials said she had just gotten out of her parked car when she plunged into the opening, and no construction was happening in the intersection at the time.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"lu22\">First responders called to the scene around 11:15 p.m. found Gocaj unconscious. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"1nm6o\">Con Ed did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday about Gocaj\u2019s cause of death and the status of the utility company\u2019s investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n<p data-block-key=\"70ac1\">The company previously said video footage indicated a \u201cmulti-axle truck\u201d had dislodged the manhole cover about 12 minutes before Gocaj parked her car on the street. Spokespeople described the incident as a \u201crare occurrence.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who fell into an open Con Edison manhole in Midtown earlier this week died from heat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-239201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}