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A Portland cyclist says he was forcefully knocked off his bicycle and onto the street on Southeast 64th Avenue between Center and Boise streets by a Comcast cable that was strung across the road.

(Aimee Green/The Oregonian)

A 64-year-old cyclist who fractured his spine and three ribs after he rode into a Comcast cable that was strung across a Southeast Portland street filed a $342,000 lawsuit this week.

A Comcast subcontractor had strung the "skinny black" cable across the road at an elevated level, but still low enough for a Portland Disposal & Recycling truck to snag it and pull it down so it was suspended at "neck level" of Michael A. Horner, said Horner's Portland attorney, Mark Ginsberg.

"All of a sudden, (bam) he gets clotheslined," Ginsberg told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "He lands on his back and fractures a lot of things."

Horner is suing Comcast as well as Portland Disposal. Both companies declined to offer comment for this story.

The line was suspended near Southeast 64th and Boise Street on the morning of Feb. 2, 2015, Ginsberg said.

Horner had been on his way to work -- still seven miles away -- at Shriners Hospital for Children, where he manufactures orthotics and prosthetics for patients, Ginsberg said.

In addition to Horner's broken ribs, he sustained fractures to the bony protrusions on three of his lower vertebrae, L1 to L3, according to the lawsuit. He was "rendered incapacitated" and unable to work for the first three months after the incident, according to the lawsuit and Ginsberg.

The suit seeks $65,000 for medical expenses to date, about $27,000 in lost income and up to $250,000 in non-economic for pain and suffering.

Several years ago, Ginsberg said, he represented another cyclist who broke some ribs after pedaling into a Comcast cable line strung across the road while a subcontractor was still installing it. The case settled before the cyclist filed a lawsuit.

Read this week's lawsuit here. It was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

-- Aimee Green

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