St. John's woman slips on icy sidewalk, breaks leg in 3 places

A slip and fall on an icysidewalk has sidelined a St. John's set designer, and now she's calling on the city to do more to keep pedestrians safe.

Kelly Brutonfell in early January while walking on Livingston Streetin the city'sdowntown, and broke her leg in three places.

"There's a break in three parts of the leg ... a tibia break, a fibula break and the ankle bone was separated from the fibula,"BrutontoldCBC Radio'sOn The Go.

She neededsurgery to have screws put in,to ensure proper alignment, and she's mad at the city for not doing a better job of clearing sidewalks.

"Pedestrian safety, especially in the winter is really a basic human right, to be able to move freely where you live without any fear of having any injury," said Bruton.

"I live downtownso that I canbe a pedestrian ... it's one thing to clear the snow away but you need to create a surface that haswalkabilityand safety for a pedestrian," she said.

Brutonsaid she chooses to walk instead of driving or taking a bus andthere are many other people in the city like her.

Sheplans her route everyday, walks slowly andknows what spots to keep an eye out for, but even taking those extra precautions, she'salways had afear of falling.

She said the city's current snowclearing plan, which pushes snow to either side of the sidewalk, just isn't doing a good job.

The snow melts and creates ice in the walking paths and she saidto cross a street, a lot of times you have to jump over banks of frozen ice.

Added blow

Brutonwas employed as a set decoratoron the series Frontier before her injury but is now unemployed.

"It really means that there is zero income it means Ican't work," saidBruton.

"These are time-sensitive schedules and really high-energy work, so I mean they just move onto the next person, that's justhow it works."

Ironically, Bruton has been an advocate for sidewalk safety for years.

In 2013, shestarted a Facebookpage to help make the city awareof thesafetyconcerns.

"I want them to know how serious this is," said Bruton.

"I've had so many falls ... now time has caught up with me and now I'm sitting back in the middle of winter immobilized."

Solving the problem

Brutonsaid she doesn'thave all the answers but saidthe city could create some sort of "green zones" where certain sidewalk routes get extra cleaning and salting to make them safer forpedestrians.

"I don't want this to happen to anybody else," she said.

"It's infuriating to listen about how much talk there is in themorning about theconditions of the roads, when you know that there is a large percentage of the population that's walking on the sidewalks to get to work, or on the street."