It’s a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and you and your friends decide that you’re going to head over to one of your favorite shopping centers on the edge of town and spend a couple of hours window shopping. You go in and out of stores, looking through merchandise, talking with your friends, and trying on clothes. But before calling it a day and heading to dinner, you decide to stop in one last store.
As you enter this last store, you lose your footing on a slick spot on the ground. Your legs fly out from underneath you and your head smacks into the closing glass door behind you. After a ride in an ambulance, it’s determined that you have a twisted ankle, broken tailbone, and a cerebral contusion at the base of your brain. Your fun afternoon shopping has turned into a painful and expensive situation.
Handling Your Slip and Fall
“When you visit a person’s home or apartment, go to work in an office building, shop in a store, walk through a parking lot or use an elevator or escalator, you have every reason to expect that you will be safe,” Davis, Saperstein & Salomon, P.C. explains. “Unfortunately, property owners and occupiers often fail to inspect their premises, fix hazardous conditions or warn visitors about the risks they face. Their negligence can cause visitors to suffer serious slip and fall accidents.”
Whether it’s a slip and fall when you’re shopping in a nearby store or walking around the factory floor at your place of employment, the medical bills, as well as pain and suffering, can add up. To protect yourself and avoid getting hung out to dry, here are some specific things you should do:
1. Seek Medical Attention
The very first thing you need to do is seek medical attention. Nothing is more important than your health and timely care is going to give you the best chance at a full recovery.
It’s especially important that you get immediate medical attention any time there’s been an injury to the head. There’s always the possibility of bleeding in the brain and you need to have a doctor look at you and order the appropriate tests.
2. Document Everything
As soon as your condition is considered stable, document what happened. You need to dictate what happened prior to, during, and after the incident. It’s also wise to gather contact information of any witnesses and preserve any evidence that you believe is relevant to the situation.
3. Report the Accident
The next step is to report the accident. While it’s possible that the business owner, property owner, or individual responsible for the safety of the premises was present at the time of your injury, it’s also possible that they don’t know about the situation. Reporting the accident, in writing, is the next step.
4. Contact an Attorney
Before proceeding too far, contact an attorney who you feel comfortable with. There are lots of personal injury lawyers, so look for one with experience and a pedigree of obtaining successful outcomes and verdicts for clients.
5. Focus on Getting Better
You need to get better – that’s all there is to it. Let your attorney worry about all the legal details, while you focus on healing.
Look Out For Your Best Interests
Slip and fall cases are usually the result of negligence, not malicious actions. However, that doesn’t make the business or individual any less responsible for your injury. Look out for your best interests and make sure you respond as quickly as possible after your injury.
