First responders assist after pedestrian falls into uncovered maintenance hole
In the cold that plagued Kingston near the end of last week, one woman found herself trapped in a hole on a day where temperatures plummeted below -30 C.
On the morning of Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, just after 8:30 a.m., an emergency call was placed that saw all local emergency services respond to the parking lot alongside Bath Road at Splitsville Kingston, the bowling alley formerly known as Cloverleaf Bowling Lanes. There, a woman was trapped inside a utility maintenance service hole. Kingston Police responded to the incident first, and quickly called on Kingston Fire & Rescue and Frontenac Paramedic Services to assist.
The woman had been playfully jumping from snowbank to snowbank with her friends as she walked along the area, often referred to as “the old traffic circle” due to the traffic circle that was once there over 40 years ago. As she was doing so, she fell into the maintenance hole, according to Kingston Fire & Rescue, and she became trapped inside.
“The metal cover appears to have been accidentally removed during snow removal operations,” the local fire department said in response to Kingstonist inquiries, referring to the metal cover having become dislodged from its spot due to snowplowing or shovelling.
Luckily, firefighters were able to quickly rescue the trapped person using a ladder they had onboard one of their attending trucks. The woman was then assessed by Frontenac Paramedics, and Kingston Police secured the area until the maintenance service hole was properly covered, according to Kingston Fire & Rescue.
After the odd accident, the likelihood of which could not have been foreseen, the woman was safely back on terrafirma and assessed by paramedics within half an hour.
According to Frontenac Paramedic Services and Kingston Police via follow-up communications late Monday, Feb. 6 and early Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, the pedestrian sustained minor injuries from falling into the uncovered utility service maintenance hole. After being assessed by paramedics, the woman was taken to Kingston General Hospital (KGH) for treatment of those injuries.
In addition, Kingston Fire & Rescue would like to remind residents not to play on snowbanks, or make forts of tunnels in them, as doing so presents a wide array of safety concerns.