Lisa Kennedy, shown with her grandmother, spent 11 days in the hospital with an infection after she surfed off Waikiki four days after a huge sewage discharge began last year, her lawyer says.

Lisa Kennedy went surfing in waters off Hilton Hawaiian Village four days after the start of the discharge, lacerated her left buttock when she fell on to the coral reef and developed an infection from the contaminated waters, according to the suit.

Kennedy, a waitress at a Waikiki restaurant, was hospitalized 11 days, her lawyer Rick Fried Jr. said.

The suit seeks compensation for Kennedy's pain and suffering, loss of wages and medical bills.

The city pumped the sewage into the canal because of a ruptured major sewer line.

City spokesman Bill Brennan said the city "strongly disagrees" that the city did not post adequate warnings.

He said immediately after the start of the discharge on March 24 last year, the city posted warning signs in areas that it believed would be affected by the sewage. Additional signs were posted the next day, including at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor parking lot, where surfers enter the water to reach surfing spots such as Kaisers. That's where Kennedy said she suffered the coral injury.