The interior of Nigel Edinborough’s 2002 Ford Escape after a manhole exploded under his SUV. (Paul Martinka)
A death-dodging Brooklyn marine who nearly lost his life to improvised explosive devices in Iraq, almost died today when a manhole exploded underneath his beloved SUV moments after he had moved it to a new parking spot on an icy street.
Nigel Edinborough’s 2002 Ford Escape was incinerated less than two minutes after he left it on Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights around 6:30 a.m.
“It was like back in Iraq,” the eight-year veteran turned construction and iron worker, told The Post.
“All I could think about was my wife and daughter — I could’ve been in that car.”
The SUV, which Edinborough, 31, bought new and had put over 87,000 miles on, was completely incinerated along with his work tools, winter coat, pricey sound system and GPS when a series of manholes along Empire Boulevard exploded.
Just a few days ago he and his wife, Peaches, had taken their week-old daughter. Nilah to a doctors appointment around the same time of day, he said.
“She was really shook up,” he said. “She gave me a big hug.” Edinborough said moments after he had moved the doomed Ford to its new spot, he headed back into his nearby apartment building.
While he was taking the stairs to his fifth floor flat he heard an explosion.
“Before I got upstairs I heard a loud boom,” he said, comparing the sound those he heard daily in Iraq where roadside bombs frequently destroy the same U.S. military convoys Edinborough regularly rode along in.
“I didn’t pay it no attention, but then I heard helicopters and trucks overhead and turned on the news and I saw a vehicle on fire that looked like mine.”
By the time Edinborough raced back downstairs, just 15 minutes after he moved the SUV, it was a burned out husk. “I could’ve been in the car,” he said. “It happened not even two minutes after I moved it.”
A spokeswoman for Con Edison said the power company responded to three manhole explosions on the block, including the one that destroyed Edinborough’s Ford.
She believed the explosions may have been the result of melted snow and ice that had mixed with road salt to create highly conductive runoff that shorted out underground power boxes.