Gothamist77%
Family sues Con Edison over woman’s fatal fall into Midtown manhole 54%
By Samantha Max68%
7/17/2026, 8:09:32 PM
Keywords: Manhattan, Public Safety
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, and Burden of Proof, with Appeal to Emotion as the most egregious example at 34.5% saturation with 143 hits. Analysis detected 755 faulty-reasoning hits from 415 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 52.2% and a BS Rank of 54% (10,167 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 53.60% of the article peer group.
Con Edison should have done more to secure the area around a Midtown Manhattan manhole that a woman fell into, causing her death, her family said in a lawsuit filed this week.
Donike Gocaj, 56, dropped into a manhole near the intersection of East 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue in May.
She fell about 10 feet underground and died from scald burns, heat inhalation and blunt force trauma, according to the medical examiner’s office.
Gocaj’s death shocked New Yorkers in its seeming randomness and brutality.
Her son, Armando Gocaj, and her domestic partner, Jashar “Jack” Kameraj said in their lawsuit that the utility company disregarded her life by failing to safely cover the manhole.
They said Con Edison knew its manhole covers could become dislodged and failed to properly seal the gap.
“They want answers.
They want prevention,” said Diana Carnemolla, an attorney representing Gocaj’s family.
A Con Edison spokesperson said in a statement that the company extends its condolences to Gocaj’s loved ones but cannot comment on specific allegations while the lawsuit is pending.
In May, a spokesperson told Gothamist a “multi-axle truck” had driven over the manhole and dislodged the cover about 12 minutes before Gocaj parked her car and fell inside.
The lawsuit alleges that Con Edison had received complaints about the condition of the manhole cover.
But on May 18, when Gocaj plummeted underground, the manhole wasn’t barricaded, and there were no cones, signs or other safeguards to keep people away, the lawsuit states.
Gocaj’s partner was with her when she fell and heard her screaming, “I’m dying!
I’m dying!”
according to the civil complaint.
Carnemolla said Kameraj and bystanders tried to create a “human chain” to pull her out, without success.
There was no way to climb down and get her, the attorney said.
“She knew she was dying for all that time, however long it was,” Carnemolla said.
“She was well aware of it.”
Gocaj’s loved ones are seeking an unspecific amount of money to compensate for her death and the effects of the loss.
Kameraj is also seeking relief for the anguish of witnessing what happened and “desperately” attempting to save his domestic partner.
”They do not want her suffering to be in vain,” Carnemolla said.
“They want to make certain that something is done, that Con Edison owns the responsibility to what happened and then makes change, so that no other family suffers like they're suffering.”
Speakers
3speakers42%attributed speech240writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageArmando Gocaj
47 attributed words27% of attributed speech90% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.