A 10-year-old Brooklyn boy on his way to school plunged 15 feet down an open manhole — and was rescued from the dark, dirty sewer tunnel by quick-thinking Verizon workers.
Moshe Altman, a sixth-grader at Ohr Torah, was walking along 13th Avenue near 49th Street in Borough Park when he suddenly dropped into the open manhole at 8:50 a.m., authorities and witnesses said.
Verizon workers Mike Kroski, 39, and Tom Prestia, 46, were driving along 13th Avenue when they saw a crowd gathered around the manhole.
“We pulled over and asked the officer how we could help out and first suggested throwing a rope down to the kid,’’ said Kroski, a father of two.
“The cop didn’t think he would be able to climb up the rope, so we went and got our collapsible ladder and put it down there.”
“The kid climbed right up and looked fine. It was at least a 15-foot drop. He had some bruises on his leg but that’s about it. I was at the right place at the right time.”
Fellow rescuer Prestia said, “Anytime you do something like this, it feels good.”
He noted that, if it had been raining hard at the time, Moshe could have been swept away by surging water in the tunnel.
City Department of Environmental Protection crew members found the manhole cover in pieces in the sewer line.
Moshe’s grateful father, Yitshak, got on the phone to personally thank the Verizon workers.
“I would like to thank you so, so much,’’ he told Kroski.
“I’m a religious Jew and I believe God brought you there at the right time.’’
Kroski responded, “I’m only glad we could help. It’s amazing it happened while we were right there.’’
Yitshak Altman said his son, treated at Lutheran Medical Center, suffered leg cuts that required stitches.
“He has some pain here and there, he has some stitches and whatever but hopefully he’s going to be fine,” Altman said, adding, “I want to say thank you for everyone and everybody.”
He questioned how his son could have fallen into the hole in the first place.
“Why are there open or broken manholes?’’ Altman asked. “Every kid is in danger.’’
Repairs to the manhole were under way and an investigation is ongoing, a source said.
The DEP maintains more than 500,000 manholes, in the five boroughs but a source said the the one that broke wasn’t being worked on when Moshe fell in.
The Department of Transportation, which takes reports of street infrastructure problems, did not respond to inquiries about whether the broken manhole had been reported to the agency.