Slips and Falls Dangerous to Older Individuals

Taking a bad spill is something that all of us learn about at a very young age. When you’re younger, your bones are better able to absorb shock and you’re not as likely to injure yourself in a fall. In addition to just being in generally better shape, your reflexes are usually faster, which enables you to catch yourself and avoid the worst of a fall. For older individuals, however, taking a bad fall can be very dangerous. Particularly on certain surfaces, such as the hard floors in retail establishments, falls can be deadly.

How Deadly

For older people, defined as being age 65 or older, taking a fall can be a genuine risk to their lives. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 12,800 deaths in 2002 among people in that age bracket from slips and falls. In addition to this, 1.6 million people ended up in the emergency room because of a slip and fall accident.
Sometimes, falling doesn’t cause any injuries, sometimes it causes very minor injuries but, all too often, it is a serious and dangerous source of injuries in people, particularly older individuals. The injury sustained during a bad slip and fall can result in very high medical bills, lost time at work, a decrease in the quality of life and injuries that may persist in their symptoms throughout the rest of the person’s life.

Premise Liability Claims

Many of the slip and fall accidents that older people suffer are suffered in the home. In such scenarios, people are able to eliminate the threats that make a slip and fall accident likely and, by doing so, allow themselves to enjoy a greater degree of safety in their everyday life.
In other situations, however, someone else is directly responsible for creating the conditions that lead to a damaging or deadly fall. In such cases, premise liability claims are sometimes filed against the person responsible for maintaining the property where the incident occurred. These premise liability lawsuits allow the person who was injured to seek compensation for what they have been put through.
If someone in your family has died due to a slip and fall on a commercial property, you may want to consider filing a wrongful death claim. A premise liability claim can help in the event that the person is fortunate enough to survive but did suffer injuries.