What To Do If You Are Injured In A Slip And Fall Incident

So you’ve been injured in a slip and fall incident? If so, you are entitled to bring a claim against the property owner to recover compensation for your injuries. This is what’s called a “Personal Injury” claim.

If you’ve been injured, there are a couple of things that you need to do right away. The first is to make the other party aware of what happened right away. For example, if you have slipped and fallen at your local department store, they are not going to know that you fell unless you tell them. You should locate the manager and have that department store file an incident report, and make sure that they give you a copy of it before you leave. Look around and ask whether there were any witnesses to your accident, and have their names and contact information on the report as well. If you left the store without notifying the manager, go back right away and advise them of the incident.

You would obviously want to seek medical treatment right away as well. Go to the emergency room of the local hospital or schedule an appointment with your primary care physician ASAP. Failure to seek medical attention right away is one of the leading reasons for diminished value of injury cases.

Another important task is to take pictures of any injuries. Photos of bruises and lacerations will have a major impact on your case, and they are more pronounced in the first days after the incident. Photographs of the location of the fall are also a very valuable asset.

The next step for you to take is to contact an experienced personal injury attorney. They typically will not charge you for a consultation and will not charge you a fee unless they recover something. I have found that many people attempt to handle their own injury cases by themselves without the help of an attorney. That is a huge mistake. Statistics show that an experienced attorney will recover many times over the amount that you can recover on your own. In addition, without an attorney, you may be waiving or signing away rights and entitlements to which you should have pursued.

Tags: appointment, bruises, consultation, department store, emergency room, failure, lacerations, local hospital, medical attention, medical treatment, mistake, personal injury attorney, personal injury claim, property owner, slip and fall