At the very least, slipping and falling can leave you bruised and embarrassed. It may bring to mind hilarious YouTube videos showing people losing their footing and making spectacular somersaults to the delight of onlookers.
Your loved one’s fall was nothing like that. One minute, he or she was leaving your home, and the next, you were answering a call from an Alabama emergency room. In fact, you may have been shocked when you arrived at the hospital and learned that your loved one was in intensive care suffering from a traumatic brain injury.
How serious is a brain injury?
Concussions and other brain injuries are common results of slipping or tripping and falling. Whether you fall backward or forward, your momentum often carries your head down first. If your hands are full or you are falling down stairs, you may be unable to stop the forward motion in time to spare your head from striking the ground or some other surface along the way.
The results can be catastrophic. Depending on the extent of your loved one’s injury and the location of the injury on the brain, your loved one may suffer chronic migraines, dizziness and confusion. If the injury is severe, your loved one may face a lifetime of cognitive and physical impairment or other deficits.
Who is responsible?
You may decide to investigate whether your loved one’s accident was the result of negligence on the part of the property owner where he or she fell. Negligence includes the creation of slipping or tripping hazards or the failure to rectify a hazard the owner knew about or should have known about.
Common tripping and slipping hazards include these and countless others:
- Patches of ice
- Oil or grease on the floor or parking lot
- Poor lighting where tripping hazards exist
- Water on a smooth floor
- Clutter in the aisle or halls
- Power cords stretched across a public walkway
- Loose floorboards or uneven sections of floor
- Loose pieces of carpet or floor mats
- Clutter in the aisle or halls
If you return to the scene of your loved one’s accident, it will help your case to take pictures of the area and the hazard. You may also want to preserve the shoes your loved one was wearing to help prove that he or she did not contribute to the fall.
There are numerous difficult barriers to overcome in presenting a successful premises liability case to obtain compensation for your loved one’s injuries. You may seek assistance from a legal professional who has experience pursuing slip-and-fall cases and who is familiar with the premises liability laws in your jurisdiction.
