San Diego

Lemon Grove Woman Files Claims with Two Cities After Nasty Fall

The woman believes her bike crash was caused by bad road conditions.

A Lemon Grove woman has filed a claim with two cities after she hit a pothole and flew off her bike, a fall she believes was caused by bad road conditions. 

Rosie Vazquez told NBC 7 she was riding her bike last May on 69th Street when the crash happened. She wanted to gauge the time it would take her to ride her bike from her home to work.  

"I was on my way down and up at the stop sign over there I noticed that the street was a little bit, you know, disheveled," Vazquez recalled.

As she is riding her bike down the road, she said, she decided to try and avoid the road. As she dealt with traffic conditions, she said, she struck a pothole. 

"And unfortunately, I hit a pothole of some sort, at which point it caused my bike to turn, and I flipped and landed somewhere down there," Vazquez said. "I skid; I skid quite a ways, I still have the marks from the skidding."

The impact of the crash knocked her out. When Vazquez came to, she noticed the blood first. 

"The first thing I noticed was the blood," she said. "And then my teeth. I had broken my teeth. I thought I had lost all of my teeth."

The fall left her with several fractured ribs and broken teeth, in addition to bruises. 

Vazquez has filed a medical bill claim with both the city of Lemon Grove and San Diego.

It's still unclear who is responsible for the road repairs, but she says something needs to be done.

"Where are our tax dollars going? I asked myself," she said. "Because I should be able to leave my house with my child and we should be able to ride our bike to the store or ride my bike to work."

She said she worries about children like her own, who see a downward sloping road and only think about how fun of a ride it will be.

β€œMy child coming down that road is not going to think to slow down," Vazquez said. "She’s going to think, β€˜weee,’ this is fun. Any other kid is.”

"The streets need to be fixed," Vazquez added. "That's it."

 The City of Lemon Grove said they cannot talk about pending claims, and the City of San Diego stated that they have done repairs to the street, but they cannot comment on the claim. 

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