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Emrys Horton’s first instinct when he saw flames engulf a boat in a Yaletown marina was to run to help. He wasn’t thinking of the ground beneath him. But in his sprint to the boat, Horton rolled his ankle on a large lump in the sidewalk.

Horton, manager of the nearby Provence Marinaside restaurant, had reacted to the billowing smoke from flames that had engulfed a 10-metre pleasure vessel on Oct. 12, 2017. The blaze took eight fire trucks and a fireboat to put out.

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No one was hurt in the fire — but Horton suffered more than just a sprain. He twisted his ankle so much that he tore the tendon off his bone, taking a piece of bone with it, in what’s known as an avulsion fracture.

“My ankle will literally never be the same as it was,” said Horton, 43.

He reported the sidewalk hazard, but didn’t report his injury. It never occurred to him.

“I suspect I probably should have, but I didn’t at the time,” Horton said about the idea of taking his case to a personal-injury lawyer. “I probably won’t now.”