I see my bills stacking up, says woman hurt in gym

A teacher who ran into a wall while doing a bear-crawl at a gym class said yesterday: “I don’t think it is fair that I came to the gym, got injured, and now I see my bills stacking up.”

Camille Evans, of O’Connell St, Blackpool, Cork, gave evidence on the second day of her action against River’s Edge fitness centre on Sullivan’s Quay, Cork, before Mr Justice Michael Hanna at the High Court in Cork.

Ms Evans, aged 41, was at the gym class in River’s Edge when the accident happened on January 28, 2015.

Cross-examining the plaintiff, John Lucey said she had been up and down the room seven times before this occurred on the eight occasion. He said the end point marked by a cone was more than 3m from the wall.

The instructor told them what to do and showed them by doing it himself first. The plaintiff said she could not remember him doing it.

Ms Evans said she did the bear-crawl easily the first time as she did it slowly but on the second occasion she was trying to go fast and had her head too far down.

“I was doing the position like the downward facing dog in yoga,” she said.

“How did you crash into the wall?” Mr Lucey asked.

“The first time I did it carefully, tentatively,” said Ms Evans. “The second time I did it much too quickly. I was in the wrong position. My view was not straight. My butt was in the air. My feet were going too quickly. When I tried to stand up my momentum brought me forward and I hit into the wall. I knew I had to stand up. I did not have a visual clue to stand up. Clearly I misjudged it.”

Mr Lucey said: “The visual clue was the marker on the ground that you had passed seven times already.”

Ms Evans said: “The problem was I was not doing the exercise correctly.”

Mr Lucey asked: “Did you know there was a wall in front of you?”

She replied: “Yes.”

“Why did you not stop?” Mr Lucey asked.

She replied: “I didn’t have time to stop so I ran into the wall.”

Mr Justice Hanna said: “You got the head down and went for it pell-mell.”

Later he said: “In fairness to the plaintiff, if she is doing something wrong, she is doing it in the full glare of the supervisor. It is up to the conductor to keep control of the orchestra. If she is going about it the wrong way and he was not correcting her he was not doing his job.”

The case continues.