Left out on a hole limb

By Kath Gannaway
THREE months after stepping into a hole by the side of the road near her home, Healesville woman Robyn Gussman still can’t walk unaided and the hole is still a hole.
Ms Gussman said she felt compelled to call the Mail after reading recent reports of residents in Yarra Glen and Healesville calling on the Shire of Yarra Ranges to lift its game with maintenance work.
She said she severely injured the tendons in her ankle when she stepped into the hole up to her knee.
Ms Gussman had been walking down the made footpath on the north side of McGregor Avenue on 8 December last year when a friend offered her a lift.
“I stepped back away from the gutter to open the door and what had looked like solid ground just collapsed from under me,” she said.
Long grass had recently been cut and had camouflaged the hole, she explained.
Ms Gussman said she was concerned both about the fact that nothing had been done to fix what turned out to be a number of holes along the gutter despite notifying Yarra Ranges council immediately after the incident and that nobody contacted her.
“I went in (to Healesville Community Link) a couple of times. No one rang me back and it took two months for the tape to go up.
“It was only when I went back after Christmas that they put red and white tape along the footpath,” she said.
Ms Gussman said she was concerned that students from Healesville High School and elderly people from Monda Lodge Village could suffer the same fate.
Ms Gussman said the final blow came when she was contacted by the shire’s insurance company and was advised that she was not eligible for any compensation for her injuries, although they offered to reimburse the cost of the crutches she had needed to use for three months.
“I was told I could not get any form of compensation for pain and suffering or for being housebound because the accident had not resulted in a permanent injury,” Ms Gussman said.
Shire of Yarra Ranges spokesman James Martin said confusion about the location of the hole had made it hard to find and resulted in an initial delay.
“Once the area was identified a check was undertaken at which time it was felt that more investigation needed to be done to determine why holes were appearing and whether there are more underlying problems,” he said.
He said the hole had been webbed off to make it safe and work was expected to start at the end of this week or early next week.
He said the location of the holes meant it was very rare for pedestrians to be in that area.
Mr Martin said claims were assessed under the state government’s Road Management Act which put a minimum threshold of $1020 on anyone seeking compensation or reimbursement arising from the use of the roadway, including footpaths.