A woman who broke her ankle in three places after slipping on plastic tactile dots will miss out on a marathon in Croatia and breast reconstruction because of the injury.
Auckland woman Meg Rogers has just been discharged from hospital after slipping on the shiny plastic dots near Spark Arena in the central city last month.
“I was just walking along with my marathon training group and the next thing I knew I was sliding along them and ended up in the gutter,” Rogers, 74, said.
“I ended up in a heap on Quay St and I knew straight away my leg was broken.”
An ambulance was called and Rogers’ training group stayed with her until it arrived.
“One of the guys in my group found some road cones and put them around me on the road so I didn’t get hit.
“They saw the leg was at angles so they knew I couldn’t be moved.”
Tactile ground surface indicators (TGSI) are installed by Auckland Transport and are essential for the blind and those with low vision to navigate footpaths, cross roads safely and use public transport.
But the particular smooth-topped tactile dots Rogers slipped are a known hazard and have caused countless slips and numerous serious injuries.
The Herald recently revealed Auckland Transport has been aware of the slips and injuries the plastic tactile pavers have caused for at least five years but has not warned to public.
They are slowly being replaced with safer pre-cast concrete tactiles that still assist the sight-impaired but are non-slip - the slippery dots remain at hundreds of sites in the Auckland Region and beyond.
The dots are so notorious even the ambulance officer who came to assist Rogers slipped on them as he was putting her on to the stretcher.
Rogers spent eight days in Auckland Hospital waiting for the swelling to go down and then had a four-hour surgery to insert plates and screws to stabilise the break.”
The serious injury meant she could no longer attend a marathon in Croatia she had been planning for three years.
“That trip meant a lot to me because I missed out on the Great Wall of China marathon in 2020 because of Covid.
“I have run in New York and Chicago and I was really looking forward to Croatia.”
Worse still the surgery meant a lengthy delay to breast reconstruction surgery after Rogers had a double mastectomy two years ago.
“I have been waiting two years and four months and I got the letter two days after I was discharged confirming my reconstruction surgery,” she said through tears.
“I can’t do that now. It will come back but it’s not what I needed to hear right now.”
To add insult to the painful ankle injury Rogers was sent home two days after her surgery with heavy plaster cast and only a set of crutches.
Rogers tried shuffling around her apartment with the heavy cast and had fallen over within ten minutes.
“I managed to get myself to my bedroom but I had slept in the same clothes since I was discharged because I couldn’t get around.”
Rogers spent her first night at home in the cold because she couldn’t reach the switch to turn on her heating.
She also had to pay $1000 for a one-way ticket for her sister to come from Australia to look after her.
Amanda Malu from ACC told the Herald a wheelchair had now been couriered to Rogers and her needs were being urgently reassessed.
Rogers stressed she knew how essential a good tactile network was for those with low vision and wanted dangerous tactiles replaced not removed.
“I worked for the Fred Hollows Foundation for six years in East Timor and Fiji so am very passionate and aware of what is important.
“These things are dangerous for people with good eye-sight and even more so for people with low vision because they can not see they are wet.”
Last week the Herald revealed the high number of serious injuries caused by slips on the yellow dots. One of them was Glen Eden man Leo Breva who may still lose his leg after breaking it in four places.
Breva slipped on the dots at the Sunnyvale Train Station in west Auckland, snapping bones just below the knee and above the ankle.
Since Breva shared his story more than a dozen people have contacted the Herald and detailed their experiences on the shiny yellow dots.
These include a woman whose daughter slipped on to a busy road by the Barfoot and Thompson Netball Centre in Northcote, a woman who slipped in Newmarket and suffered a spiral fracture and a cyclist with facial injuries.
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Other serious injuries include three women who all slipped on the same corner on Anzac Street and Campbell Rd in Takapuna. One broke her back, one broke her ankle and one suffered the exact same break as Meg Rogers - a broken tibia, fibula and heel.
A woman with low vision told the Herald she had slipped on the PVC dots near Smales Farm going from the bus station to the doctor.
“I have slipped on them by the pedestrian crossing and it gave me a hell of a fright. I was grazed and ripped my jeans but nothing broken,” she said.
“They let me know when I am at the edge of the kerb which is great but they all need to be non-slip.”
The Herald is waiting on details from an Official Information Act request that revealed a further 20 complaints to AT.
Auckland Transport’s executive general manager of safety Stacey van der Putten confirmed AT was now fast-tracking remedial work on train stations and had reallocated funding so sites known to have caused injury could be investigated as a priority.
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In an interview with the Herald van der Putten from AT said she had ordered an urgent audit to identify and assess all sites where the older dots remained.
AT was looking at remedial work such as non-skid coatings applied to the shiny dots to remove the immediate slip danger until the now standard pre-cast concrete pavers were installed.
Days after Leo Breva shared his story in the Herald AT placed warning cones at transport stations to warn of slip hazards and contractors were instructed to report any sites within their areas.
“It’s awful to think people have been injured in the breadth of terms of what we have seen reported in recent times,” van der Putten said.
She said the network operations team from the road corridor side of AT was reprioritising funding to support improving the tactiles.
“They will be assessed and we will go from there,” she said.
“We want to make sure our infrastructure is accessible for blind and low vision but we also want to make sure they are not causing harm to others.”
Van der Putten said AT needed to do the right things at the right time and said things could have been addressed earlier.
“Do I think we could have looked at this earlier - yes I do in terms of that.”
Asked what her message was to the people who were injured like Leo Breva who said he was brushed off by AT, van der Putten said she “felt awful” for them.
“We do want to understand what happened so we can do better and makes sure things are accessible and safe for people as they traverse around the network,” she said.
“We are telling people to get out there.”
“The key thing is let’s identify where these problem tactiles are and understand what we can do about them.
“Understanding people’s injuries is really important and saying there is ACC is one thing but this is impacting people’s lives and we need to make sure we do the right thing.”
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Although they look bright yellow the style that becomes slippery when wet are up to 16 years old and were installed from 2006.
Van der Putten said the plastic tactiles were “certified to do the job” back in 2006. She believed some had degraded over time.
She said the audit would determine which were now “fit for purpose.”
A directive in 2014 stated only concrete tactiles could be used in new builds.
Despite this the shiny polythene dots remain at hundreds of sites around the region including bus and train stations and roads leading to public transport.
Kirsty Wynn is an Auckland-based journalist with more than 20 years of experience in New Zealand newsrooms. She has covered everything from crime and social issues to the property market and consumer affairs.
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