Background: The scene where Teresa Gonzales fell through an open manhole cover (WFAA). Inset: Teresa Gonzales (WFAA).
A Texas woman fell through an open manhole while crossing an intersection and was found dead days later and miles away. Now, her family is suing the city for $100 million.
Teresa Gonzales, 66, was crossing the street on Oct. 22 when she fell into an uncovered sewer system manhole and went missing for three days. Her body was eventually found nine miles away at the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. Dallas Police are investigating the incident as an “unexplained death,” but do not believe there was foul play involved. The medical examiner’s office is conducting an autopsy and the results are pending.
Cynthia Gonzales — the daughter of Teresa Gonzales — appeared alongside her family’s attorney, Ramez Shamieh for a news conference on Dec. 10 and told the press, “She was my mom,” adding of the nature of her death, “Nobody should have to go through that. Nobody. I don’t care who you are, nobody should have to feel that… not that kind of tragedy.”
Days later at another news conference, Shamieh said that more witnesses from Oct. 22 had come forward since they went public. One of those witnesses, according to Shamieh, relayed what someone driving by the scene claimed to have seen. In an interview with KXAS, a local NBC affiliate, he recounted, “There’s four workers messing around over here. She calls them over and they start blaming each other saying, ‘I cannot believe you left the manhole cover off.””
At Shamieh’s second press conference on Dec. 13, the attorney relayed another witness account, claiming “she saw [Gonzales] fall in. As you can imagine she’s driving the car, she doesn’t believe what she just saw, she does a double take and sees her clawing on for her life,” Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA reported.
Shamieh drove the point home on the nature of the scene that allegedly caused Gonzales’ death, saying, “This is not some little sewage hole. This is a big hole.” On his law firm’s site, he further explained the danger of the scene, citing photographic evidence from a week following the incident, “the manhole was uncovered and had multiple gaps in the metal coverings.”
The City of Dallas declined to provide a comment.
