A CYCLIST who had a four-hour wait in hospital after hitting a pothole and falling off her bike says she feels let down.

Maria Hinks, 56, injured her arm and elbow when she had an accident in Clarke’s Road, Dovercourt.

She was taken to the town’s Fryatt Hospital by her husband as she had a lot of pain in her shoulder and it was feared she had broken a bone.

However, after being seen by a doctor she was forced to travel to Colchester General Hospital because the X-ray department at the Dovercourt hospital does not open at weekends.

Mrs Hinks, of The Haven, Dovercourt, said: “I had only gone out to get the paper and I knew the hole in the road was there but I forgot and all of a sudden I hit it and fell off my bike on to my left arm.

“I went to the hospital here in Harwich and was seen by a doctor, but every time he touched my shoulder I winced with pain so he told me I would have to go to the Colchester hospital for an x-ray and I ended up waiting four hours to be seen.”

She now says the accident would never have happened if council bosses had fixed the many potholes in Dovercourt which she says are “dangerous”.

The mother-of-two is also demanding answers as to why she was forced to travel 20 miles to a hospital in Colchester when the Fryatt Hospital was just yards away.

Mrs Hinks, who suffered a grazed elbow and bruised shoulder in the fall, said: “Now I won’t go to work on my bike and my husband is having to drive me there. I could have broken my arm, shoulder or anything.

“All these holes in the road and pavements are dangerous and something has got to be done quickly.”

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