Texting teen falls into manhole

TRAVIS, N.Y. (WABC) -- A teenager is recovering after falling several feet into an open manhole.

She was texting and walking when it happened.

"I fell in a hole," Alexa Longueira said.

The Travis resident laughs about it now, but when the accident happened, it was a shock.

She was walking along Victory Boulevard about to read a text message on her girlfriend's cell phone when the sidewalk was suddenly gone.

"Like, there was no warning about a big, open hole," she said.

It was a big, open manhole.

Alexa tumbled six feet underground and landed in four inches of raw sewage.

"A manhole. My kid falls down a manhole," Kim Longueira, said.

In a word, Alexa's mother says it was horrible.

"She was smelly," she said.

Alexa also had cuts across her arms and down her back.

They know it could have been worse if the sewer had been full or if Alexa had hit her head.

Workers on the scene told kim they had left the manhole unattended in order to get cones to mark it off. "DEP is conducting a full investigation of what happened during a manhole incident on Victory Blvd. where workers were flushing a high-pressure sewer on Wednesday evening. We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery," said DEP spokesperson Mercedes Padilla.

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