Shoreline grandmother finds huge pile of used needles on hike with grandkids

Kuan Gebaroff of Shoreline likes to frequent the Interurban Trail, sometimes accompanied by her dog and grandchildren.

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What she saw during a recent walk changed her perception of the heavily-used trail.

“There must be forty caps and needles everywhere,” Gebaroff said in a video she emailed to KTTH’s Jason Rantz. “I’m so glad that I saw this before the kids stepped in it. I mean, this is a lot. This is bad. This is bad, bad, bad.”

The section of the Interurban Trail Gebaroff frequents begins in Seattle and runs north. Gebaroff noticed the caps just a few yards off the main trail near her apartment in Shoreline.

“My grandson just started walking on an offshoot of the Interurban Trail that heads towards Meridian,” Gebaroff said. “I was kind of paying attention, and he was ahead of me, and I saw the orange caps and I just screamed.”

Gebaroff is still processing the emotions after the experience.

“I’m angry. I think [that] is the best way to describe it,” Gebaroff said. “Of course it freaks you out when you see something like that. You hope that you catch it before, you know, the dog could’ve gotten stuck.”

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Where is that anger directed? Gebaroff doesn’t like blaming homeless people.

“It’s not entirely their fault,” Gebaroff said. “The city council in Seattle has put this on everybody’s shoulders. I think they asked to welcome a lot of addicts up and down the West Coast and when they got here no one had a plan.”

Gebaroff contacted her apartment manager after the incident, who in turn contacted the relevant authorities. She says so far there hasn’t been a meaningful response.

“Just a couple days ago there were sleeping bags down,” Gebaroff said. “You can tell they’re going there to shoot up and they’re taking their stuff with them.”

Watch her video below

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