Accessibility and Access Keys [0]
Jamie Sabourin is angry.
There’s the five months of excruciating pain he endured from a mysterious infection after dipping a cut on his left foot in the waters of Petrie Island on August 8, 2006.
There’s the thwarted Olympic dreams when the 40-year-old Canadian kickboxing champion spent the fall of 2006 hooked up to an IV drip instead of training for a spot on the national tae kwon do team.
But what gets Sabourin really riled is what he’s learned during the past week—how some city staffers knew 960,000 cubic metres of sewage spilled into the Ottawa River, but didn’t think it was a public health concern.
Sabourin is suing the City of Ottawa for $1 million and says recent revelations about the spill in early August 2006 help prove his infection was caused by massive amounts of E. coli at the Petrie Island beach.
“Obviously, somebody knew and they didn’t pass it on so that the city could be informed,” said Sabourin.
“They put people’s lives at risk, so yeah, I’m very angry,” said the landscape designer.
The former martial arts athlete said a five-month infection killed his plans for Olympic training and ended his kickboxing career, during which he won 10 national titles.
In a statement of claim filed in April 2007, Sabourin says the City of Ottawa “created an emergency and a situation of danger” when it failed to close the beach because of bacteria in the water.
But in its statement of defence, the City of Ottawa says it took “reasonable care” for beach users, adding Sabourin “knew or ought to have known of any hazardous conditions, including water quality … and voluntarily assumed the risk in entering the Ottawa River in such a manner that allegedly resulted in his injuries.”
The city’s statement of defence also says Sabourin’s injuries were aggravated by his failure to get proper medical attention and the result of “pre-existing and on-going medical problems.”
BEACH CLOSED
Neither the statement of claim or defence have been proven in court.
Sabourin was playing football at Petrie Island on August 8, 2006 when he cut his toe in the sand and washed out the wound in the Ottawa River. The beach was closed later that day because of high E. coli readings.
Within five days, Sabourin’s foot had doubled in size from cellulitis, a skin inflammation caused by a bacterial infection. It took five months and several surgeries to heal the infection, with doctors once considering amputating three of Sabourin’s toes.
Shane Katz, Sabourin’s lawyer, said the lawsuit will likely be amended to name others implicated in the sewage dumping.
Ottawa Sun