‘I just went...flying’: Montreal woman fractures ankle in pothole on way home from concert

After a concert, a Montreal woman tripped on a pothole during a dark, rainy night and injured her ankle, while destroying a record she bought.

Carole Gagnon had a typically exciting Saturday night for a music lover — a night of Stravinsky music at the Maison Symphonique, followed by another one by local sensation Angine de Poitrine at the nearby Club Soda.

But being an arts-loving Montrealer didn’t protect her from the city’s other claim to fame: potholes.

“I was walking down this way because I just came up from the Club Soda with my record on one hand and my t-shirt and I just went … flying,” Gagnon said.

Her foot got caught in a pothole at the corner of St-Laurent Boulevard and Viger Avenue West.

“Because of the (darkness) and the rain, I didn’t see it and I was not drunk,” said Gagnon, who is in her 50s.

Despite the stinging pain, she made her way home a few blocks away in Old Montreal. Her doctor confirmed her worst fear: she suffered a fracture in her ankle.

She won’t be able to work for a few weeks. She filed a complaint with the City of Montreal. Her story received a lot of media coverage and, to Gagnon’s astonishment, the hole, and many others around, are still there five days later.

“This morning, when I came in, I said maybe the hole is already fixed because it was in the newspaper two days ago. Everybody talks about it. Yet, it’s still there,” she said.

CTV News contacted City Hall to find out why it wasn’t fixed and to obtain an update on its pothole repair operation but no one was available for an interview.

For Gagnon and many Montrealers, frustration has now given way to apathy when faced with terrible roads.

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