A New Hampshire woman claims she was at Hotel Pemaquid in New Harbor last July when her boyfriend took a photo of her, then she slipped on a stair tread and became permanently injured.

Anita Freeman’s suit against Pemaquid Investment Properties, doing business as Hotel Pemaquid, claims the stair tread was too short and shallow, posing a safety hazard.

The Wiscasset Newspaper called the hotel on Sept. 23. A woman identifying herself as the owner declined to comment on the suit.

According to the complaint filed Sept. 17 in Lincoln County Superior Court, Freeman and the unnamed boyfriend arrived at the hotel around July 24 with reservations for a wheel house known as the Pilot House. The Durham, New Hampshire woman brought her luggage upstairs via the Pilot House’s front stairs, the suit continues.

“When (Freeman) came back outside her boyfriend requested that she stay on top of the stairs so he could take a photograph of her. After posing for the photograph (Freeman) attempted to walk down the stairway,” Freeman’s lawyer Michael Rainboth of Portsmouth, New Hampshire writes.

When Freeman stepped down, her foot slipped off the leading edge of the top tread and she lost her balance, the suit claims. “(She) fell down the remaining stairs, severely injuring her left leg.”

Freeman maintains that the stairs were defective, and were repaired shortly after her accident.

The suit accuses the hotel of negligence. Freeman is seeking unspecified compensation for past and future damages. She claims she lost wages, underwent medical treatment and suffered great pain.

“Her ability to enjoy her life has also been adversely affected,” Rainboth states in the complaint.

In a telephone interview Sept. 23, Rainboth said Freeman is in her seventies and works in the medical field. Asked about the leg injury the suit is claiming, he said it was a severe shin injury that then developed into a wound that has not healed.

Freeman has asked for a jury trial in the civil case.