{"id":632649,"date":"2026-04-27T20:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/632649\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T20:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T20:45:13","slug":"winnipeg-woman-plunges-into-large-hole-in-city-boulevard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/632649\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg woman plunges into large hole in city boulevard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christine Keilback went out to a movie on Saturday, but the real drama happened after, when she got home.<\/p>\n

You could say the evening went in a hole new direction.<\/p>\n

Keilback’s friends Lynda and Jeff Regan pulled up around 9 p.m. to drop her off at her house on Lipton Street, in Winnipeg’s Wolseley area.<\/p>\n

She got out of the passenger side, took a couple of steps “and they said I was gone,” Keilback told CBC News Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The Regans, still inside the vehicle, couldn’t see Keilback anymore. They thought she tripped and fell.<\/p>\n

“When they came around, it was quite surprising to find my head and shoulders just above the ground. The ground had just given away very fast. I have no recollection of the fall. It just happened very quickly,” Keilback said.<\/p>\n

\"AChristine Keilback stands in front of the spot, now marked by a barricade, where she fell into a hole in front of her property on Lipton Street in Winnipeg. (Travis Golby\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Jeff immediately ran to find something for Keilback to hang on to. He returned with a broom and a shovel that could span the gap and give her a brace to hook her arms around.<\/p>\n

Keilback tried to boost herself out, but every foothold immediately crumbled away.<\/p>\n

“So that at that point we said, OK, we gotta call 911, because I don’t want any further erosion of the dirt beneath me,” she said.<\/p>\n

Her rescuers from the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service arrived within 10 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They were so professional and they were so reassuring and kind, and I felt immediately like everything was under control,” Keilback said, routinely laughing at the absurdity of the incident.<\/p>\n

She wasn’t hurt or scared, but more “mildly amused,” she said.<\/p>\n

“If you can see the pictures, I mean, I was laughing. If I had hurt my ankle or hurt my leg or something happened, I’m sure it would have been a little more shocking than what it was.”<\/p>\n

\"LookingPart of the large pipe that was at the level of her abdomen can be seen in the hole Christine Keilback fell into. (Alana Cole\/CBC)<\/p>\n

But she was also very lucky. Keilback didn’t realize until the firefighters removed it that a jagged piece of metal was sticking out of the soil behind her.<\/p>\n

“There was also an old pipe in front of me, about the level of my abdomen, so I could have hit that on the way down,” she said.<\/p>\n

A city spokesperson told CBC News on Monday the rescuers were from the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s technical rescue task force. <\/p>\n

They slung some strapping under Keilback’s arms to support her before taking a few minutes to consider the best approach to getting her out.<\/p>\n

In her interview, Keilback repeatedly praised the crew, saying they included her in discussions every step of the way.<\/p>\n

\"FirefightersThe WFPS technical rescue task force uses a frame and winch to rescue Christine Keilback. (Submitted by Lynda Regan)<\/p>\n

Ultimately, they decided to put up a frame and winch to lift her. Keilback was given a harness and coached on how to put it on, “because there’s no way they could get in to do it,” she said.<\/p>\n

Getting the straps under her legs meant she had to dip her face below ground level, which was a little disconcerting, she said.<\/p>\n

“But I knew that if they had to pull me out just by the waist \u2026. that would create an injury, so I was pretty motivated to get the leg straps on.”<\/p>\n

She was raised until she could find a firm foothold and climb the remaining way.<\/p>\n

It was about 40 minutes from the time she dropped into the hole until she was back on solid ground.<\/p>\n

Keilback called it a sinkhole but a city spokesperson, in an email, said it appears to be a catchbasin missing the manhole cover, “but the investigation is ongoing.”<\/p>\n

“The area has been secured, and permanent repairs will be completed as soon as possible,” the email said.<\/p>\n

A city spokesperson later said crews also checked the opposite side of the road, where a second catch basin would have been located, “and identified a similar condition.”<\/p>\n

They are securing both areas so they’re safe until repairs are done, the spokesperson said in a followup email.<\/p>\n

Far from fuming about her experience, Keilback is actually grateful for the opportunity to see the “amazing” work of the WFPS crew close up.<\/p>\n

“It was a bizarre but very good experience, in that I was well cared for \u2026 but I’d rather not fall into sinkhole again,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s cold down there, I gotta tell you.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Keilback joked she hopes people don’t think they’re going to start falling through their boulevards now. But she is glad it wasn’t a child or an animal that found the one she fell in.<\/p>\n

“I was still above the ground when I fell into. Maybe somebody else wouldn’t have been.”<\/p>\n

While Alice in Wonderland would have been on the nose, it wasn’t the movie Keilback happened to see that evening. <\/p>\n

It was The Christophers, a dark comedy.<\/p>\n

WATCH | A different sinkhole opened up beneath a Winnipeg street last week:\"\"<\/p>\n

Huge sinkhole opens up in East Kildonan<\/p>\n

Some people living in East Kildonan are dealing with a lack of water and a massive sinkhole.
\nThe city says a large water main break this week caused the sinkhole on Washington Avenue between Roch and Watt streets.
\nCBC’s Sofia Peralta-Baron spoke with some of the affected homeowners yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christine Keilback went out to a movie on Saturday, but the real drama happened after, when she got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-632649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}