Cape Breton woman wants ruts on Highway 125 fixed

A woman who was badly injured in July when her car went off Highway 125 near Sydney is calling for immediate repairs to the road.

Sheila MacNeil-Gillis, of Frenchvale, suffered broken and fractured bones in her neck after her car's tires got caught in ruts in the asphalt.

The ruts are about a car's width apart and several centimetres deep in places. Water collects in them on rainy days, which can cause hydroplaning.

MacNeil-Gillis said she's travelled the highway many times before and is aware of the ruts.

"Whenever I would get into a rut, I would always ease off the gas, turn the wheel to the right and get up, out of the way, and more towards the white line, and off I'd go," she said.

It was no different on July 28, except this time, this method didn't work.

"When I did it, my car just went. After that, I don't know what happened, but a lady travelling toward Sydney saw it happen and she said I went right down over the bank, I flipped over and ended up turned around facing Sydney."

She didn't know it as she hung upside down from her seatbelt waiting for rescue, but bones in her neck were broken and she had badly wrenched her knee.

'I was spared'

After surgery on her neck, MacNeil-Gillis was at home recuperating when she heard some terrible news.

"When I heard [about] the second accident, and I heard that that man had died, I said, 'Something's got to be done,'" she said.

A 79-year-old man from North River died when his truck apparently hydroplaned on water collected in the ruts of Highway 125. Witnesses said the truck flipped several times before landing on its roof in the ditch.

MacNeil-Gillis said she told her husband Archie she had to do something. 

"'I was spared,'" she told him. "'That man wasn't and now his wife has to live without him.' I said, 'Think how broken her heart is, all because that road is rutted.'"

Several explanations have been offered by the Department of Transportation for the ruts in the pavement: the weight of heavy quarry and coal trucks, as well as studded car tires.

MacNeil-Gillis said it no longer matters why the ruts are there, only that they get fixed — for good.

"They will fix the ruts. They will resurface them. They do their best with the budgets they have, but it doesn't work," she said.

"Four months after they fix them, the ruts are back. So they need to do a whole reassessment of how that road is built."