A young woman was taken by ambulance to Greenwood Leflore Hospital Wednesday evening after the cover of a manhole on U.S. 82 apparently flipped as her car ran over it, catapulting her car into the air.
The incident happened about 6:45 p.m. in the left lane of the westbound side of U.S. 82, at the intersection with Yazoo Avenue, in front of the Shell Rapid Lube shop. The manhole cover is in the roadway itself, in line with the Shell sign, and is not slotted as a drain would be, indicating it could be an access point to underground utilities.
Greenwood resident Susan Spiller said she was in her car in the parking lot of Southern Pipe & Supply, about 150 yards from the spot, when she saw the car hit the manhole cover and rise into the air. She said it slammed back to the ground and came to a stop in the middle of both lanes of traffic.
Spiller said when she got to the car, two men were there and were able to open the door. She said City Councilman Charles McCoy arrived at the scene just after she had.
The woman in the car, who Spiller said looked like she was 19 to 25 years old, was dazed, so the men didn’t move her but put the car in neutral and pushed it to the side of the road. The only apparent damage to the car was a flat right front tire, Spiller said.
Photos taken by Spiller show the manhole cover was upside down and sitting next to the open manhole. Greenwood police answered the calls to 911 and blocked off the roadway, placing two yellow pylons in front of the manhole until emergency crews could make it to the scene.
Greenwood police put up yellow pylons to keep another driver from hitting the open manhole as they awaited road crews. A Mississippi Department of Transportation spokesman said he had never heard of a manhole in the traffic lane of a highway and had never heard of a manhole cover failing.
U.S. 82 is a state/federal highway that is maintained by the Mississippi Department of Transportation and patrolled by the Mississippi Highway Patrol. An agreement between the city of Greenwood and the state has the Greenwood Police Department responding to accidents along U.S. 82 within the city limits.
Spiller said a MedStat ambulance came to the scene. Paramedics asked the woman what had happened, but she was too dazed to tell them whether she had run over the manhole when the cover was in place or whether the cover had already been removed. They loaded her into the ambulance and transported her the few hundred yards to the hospital.
Police would not provide the name of the driver to the Commonwealth, and Greenwood Leflore Hospital said it couldn’t reveal the condition of the driver without her name.
Manhole covers weigh between 250 and 300 pounds on average and are made of cast iron. A manhole cover sits in a ring with a lip on the bottom, also cast iron, and is designed to keep people and vehicles from falling down a manhole.
It was unclear Thursday whether an MDOT crew responded to the scene and fixed the open manhole, but Greenwood Public Works Director Susan Bailey said it wasn’t her crew. The cover was in place on Thursday with what looked to be fresh asphalt surrounding it.
Jace R. Ponder, public information officer for MDOT, said a call from the Commonwealth was the first his office was hearing of the accident. He also said he’d never heard of such an incident before, nor had the engineers working in his office.
“Just in general, I haven’t heard of manholes in travel lanes, and I haven’t heard of manholes failing,” Ponder said. He did know that although the highway was maintained by MDOT, “the utility owner is going to be responsible for maintaining the structure.”
“That’s a first for me, and that’s what caught my eye,” Greenwood Police Chief Ray Moore said. “I can’t recall that ever happening.”
A similar incident occurred in May 2018 when a car driven by Frances Anne Fortner hit an unsecured manhole cover along Ridgewood Road in Jackson. Fortner’s Mazda Miata flipped, and the 18-year-old Jackson Academy senior was killed as she was on her way to graduation practice.
A lawsuit filed by Fortner’s parents against the city said the cover, which had been placed over the manhole a few days before, following repaving, was unsecured, misplaced, and/or defective.
•Contact Gavin Maliska at 581-7235 or gmaliska@gwcommonwealth.com.
