[1]The pit along Southwest 11th Street is covered by plywood today, but it was open last night.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A blind man walking to the grocery store to buy milk dropped into a brick-lined pit of an uncovered storm drain in Chehalis last night.
Police and aid called about 11:30 p.m. to the corner of Southwest 11th Street at Market Boulevard found 42-year-old Tim Franklin just pulling himself out.
[2]Tim Franklin
He said he was stuck down there about five minutes.
“I stepped into it, went forward and smacked my head on the other side,” Franklin said.
It was only chest-deep, but one of his feet got wedged in a small pipe about halfway down, he said.
“There I was, I was yelling,” Franklin said. “Not for help, I was cussin’.”
Franklin, who uses a white cane to make his way around town, was more annoyed than he was hurt. Today however, the brim of his hat hid a purplish-red scuff mark on his forehead.
“You know, I never go on this side of the sidewalk, he said.
A woman across 11th Street who heard him and called 911 told him it’s been uncovered for about three days, he said.
“Why would they leave it this way,” he said. “I’m pissed.”
The opening – on the shoulder next to the sidewalk – is about three feet long by two feet wide. A shallow stream of water trickled across the bottom of it this afternoon.
A piece of plywood and orange cones set atop it now.
The cover that belongs over it is more like a grate, according to Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Kevin Curfman. He said he was told by the street department it keeps getting stolen.
“(They’re) gonna have to figure out how to bolt it down or something,” Curfman said.
Franklin declined to go to the hospital, a paramedic checked his neck, he said.
The Chehalis man says he’s not immune to accidents because of his lack of sight. A hereditary condition gradually took his vision until it was entirely gone at age 30, he said.
Four or five years ago he fell at Stan Hedwall Park and broke his ankle, he said.
The ankle is sore, he said today. He planned to have his doctor check it, his hip and his head, he said.
Last night, after the nice paramedic was done with him, he nixed the trip to Safeway and limped the 13 blocks back home, he said.
“They didn’t offer me a ride home,” he said.