The Reaction: Vaudeville banana peel gag update!

By J. Thomas Duffy

We needed a softball one like this today ...

Oh, man, you know it was bound to happen to someone, at some point, that it was inevitable.

After all, we already have a growing menace of people having auto accidents while texting, you just had to expect some dunderhead coming along and ...

Well ... Enter Alexa Longueira ...

Teen Girl Falls In Open Manhole While Texting

It was an accident waiting to happen -- an open sewer and a 15-year-old girl who was texting while she walked.

Alexa Longueira, a high school sophomore, was walking along Victory Boulevard near Travis Avenue on Staten Island Wednesday evening when she felt the earth move and was plunged into smelly darkness.

She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer.

Somebody send this girl a boxed set of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd DVDs!

Yeah, I know, she could have been hurt, but, you gotta admit, this is pretty hysterical.

Jonathan Turley weighs in on the legal angle, in his cleverly-titled "OMG SNERT HAS NU TXT TORT! Girl Walks Into Open Sewer Hole While Texting":

The high school sophomore has a case. While she was negligent in texting and walking, the courts have previously ruled that cities must anticipate inattentive people or people with disabilities who may not see an open manhole or ditch. In Fletcher v. City of Aberdeen (1959), the city workers failed to put back barriers around an open hole and the court found that the city had to anticipate such individuals who cannot see such a danger. Likewise, Robinson v. Pioche, Bayerque & Co. (1855), a court found that the inebriation of an individual was not a defense for a city. In a statement that may fit this teenager’s case, the court held that “a drunken man is as much entitled to a safe street as a sober one, and much more in need of it.”

And, yes, the family is practicing shouting out "Show me the money":

Longueira said she was helped out of the five-foot deep sewer by an apologetic DEP worker.

She went to the hospital and the city opened an investigation, issuing the following statement:

"We regret that this happened and wish the young woman a speedy recovery."

The Longueira family wants more than get well wishes. They may sue. Alexa's mother, Kim, said: "It could have been an elderly person, a mother pushing a stroller. It could have been anyone."

Alexa lost one of her sneakers in the sewer. She does not want it back.

The girl's mother said Alexa will see more doctors next week to get an MRI and check for damage to her spine.

Might add, go shopping for neck braces.

And, it was Jazz Shaw, over at The Moderate Voice, who picked out the money-shot-punchline for this:

And for bonus points, here’s the kicker. She falls into a five foot deep sewer in an accident traumatic enough that she lost one of her shoes in the process. Yet she managed to keep hold of the phone.

There's a new commercial waiting to be screened.

All those Verizon people crammed into the sewer, girl disheveled, only one sneaker on, looking up, through the open manhole to blue skies, shouting "Can you hear me now?" -- the geeky glasses guy giving her a thumbs up.

Might not stop there.

Could be a Darwin or Stella Award in the works ...