(Don’t Step) On It!

When they’re not electrocuting your pets, they’re swallowing your employees on their way to work:

A young woman walking to work was swallowed up by a Manhattan sidewalk yesterday when a metal grate gave way, sending her plunging into an electrified power vault.

If she had fallen a few inches in another direction, Jessica Hinksmon, 26, could have been electrocuted or severely burned by the Con Ed transformer that pumps out 13,000 volts of electricity, authorities said.

. . .

Grainy footage from a nearby surveillance camera captured her terrifying fall. The video shows her walking along the sidewalk between Sixth and Seventh Aves. She then vanishes suddenly, dropping into the ground.

Another pedestrian cleared the same heavy metal grate only seconds earlier. That same pedestrian is seen on the video hurrying back to try to help.

. . .

Con Ed was probing whether the hinges of the metal grate ripped off, causing it to fall.

“It was an accident, we apologize to [the victim], but why it happened we don’t know,” said Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert.

“You would have to hit a certain spot on [the transformer] to be shocked or burnt,” he noted. “It’s not as if the whole thing is dangerous.”