Nursing leg bones broken in three places, Adrienne Mist is angry nothing has been done about a hazardous garden edging that tripped her up at Napier's KFC a month ago.
A Taradale resident, Mrs Mist fell over the protruding half-log surround when she visited the fast-food outlet at night. Stepping stones
invite customers to walk through the garden bed bordering the footpath on Tennyson Street.
Mrs Mist says she found no purchase for her foot as she stepped onto the narrow surround in the dark. With the half log turned up on its side, she rolled, twisting her left ankle and, trying to break her fall, snapped both bones in her right lower leg.
She underwent surgery and needed eight days in hospital. Still in a cast, she will have her plated, screwed and wired leg X-rayed again on November 1.
Hawke's Bay Today was told restaurant manager Moana Moore was not at work today to comment.
Mrs Mist said her leg was very painful, and she was finding it frustrating waiting for it to heal. She had recently completed an administration and computing certificate course at EIT and felt she had missed out on two job opportunities because she was immobilised.
After coming out of hospital, she rang KFC but had been told that her injury was not the store's problem. The city council said it had no control over the situation as the garden was on private property.
Mrs Mist said the council officer she spoke to had said she was not the first to have come to harm because the garden surround.
Meanwhile, Maureen Casey, of Swansea Village, is counting her blessings that she was not serious injured when she tripped on the uneven footpath at the Flaxmere Shopping Centre recently.
Unlike Aileen Jeffares, who smashed her knee cap in a fall in a similar spot, Mrs Casey only broke her shoe and received bruises.
"I tripped and fell forward. It was lucky that I twisted and hit a lamp pole otherwise I would have fallen through the butcher's window," she said.
Mrs Casey said a lot of people had fallen on the uneven footpath and she had been told that the property owners, Durney Group, planned remedial work on Sunday.
Occupational Safety and Health manager Murray Thomson said while uneven footpaths was not one of its functions, it became involved in the Flaxmere case as a public relations exercise.
