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© KSDKA South City woman fell into a sink hole in front of her house a month after reporting it to the city.
Nearly a week after a south St. Louis woman reported falling into a sinkhole to the city, she's wondering why it's still there.

So she contacted Five on Your Side's Mike Rush.

Other than a pinky finger, 63-year-old June LaBarbera has gone all her life without a broken bone. Until now.

"The humerus bone goes up here... is broken from that collar bone up there," LaBarbera points out.

Her bone and her record were broken by a hole about a foot across and three feet deep that developed in her front yard at the curb on Odell Street.


Saturday night, LaBarbera was helping her great-granddaughter out of the car, "and all of a sudden I don't know what happened. I was holding onto the car with this hand when I went around and I just went down and I heard my shoulder crack when I went down," she said.

One of her legs dropped completely in the hole. The pain was intense.

Neighbor Michael Decker, along with her grandson, helped LaBarbera out.

"It was a much greater surprise that it was a hole in the neighborhood, right here where we're always getting out walking around," LaBarbera said.

Decker covered the hole. LaBarbera called the city when she returned from the hospital. She's concerned that the city hasn't filled in the hole.

"I just don't see it as safe," she said. "I mean, children could come and lift that up and it's still there. They could fall right down into it."

NewsChannel 5 called the city.

"We believe it's a sewer problem," Kent Flake said.

Flake is the streets commissioner. He says he got the complaint late Monday and the next day a crew put up a barricade.

He says the hole hasn't been repaired because his crew needed to investigate what caused the problem.

"If I filled this up with more dirt, there's a good chance she's going to get more sewer issues, she could actually end up having backup in her basement," Flake said. "We just want to be able to inspect these and make sure we're doing the right thing with their tax dollars."

The city has determined a sewer leak in the street led to the sinkhole.

Flake says the repairs to the sewer line and the hole should be taken care of early next week.

He says, on average, the city deals with about 500 sinkholes every year.