Falling can cause you to suffer serious harm. The Villages injury attorney can provide you with representation if you or someone you love is injured or killed in a fall. It's important that you understand your rights, because as a recent Reader's Digest article explains, falling is much more serious than many people realize.
Reader's Digest not only provided insight into just how damaging falls can be, but it also offered tips on how you can successfully prevent falls from happening.
How to Prevent Falls
According to Reader's Digest, falls are the second leading cause of death resulting from injury, with only car accidents causing more injury-related fatalities. Falls cause around 646,000 people die to across the globe each year and caused more than 33,000 deaths just in the United States alone in 2015. Falls are also the leading cause of ER visits in the U.S., sending more people to the emergency room than car accidents do.
While older people face a very high risk of fall injury, they may not be at the greatest risk. In fact, recent studies have shown that close to 18 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 44 had experienced an injury as a result of a fall in the prior three months. This was more than double the number of men aged 65 and over who reported a fall during the same time period.
To help prevent falls, Reader's digest has a number of suggestions, such as:
- Taking steps to ensure you're in a safe environment: These steps include having sufficient lighting, especially at staircases, and either securing or removing loose rugs. Other steps could involve treating slick services with anti-slip coatings; cleaning spills up as soon as they happen; and installing safety bars and traction strips in showers.
- Always being careful: You shouldn't use your phone or read when walking and you should always use railings when going down stairs – don't put your hands in your pockets.
- Wearing better gear: This includes wearing good shoes with treads; avoiding wearing high heels while walking on ice; and using a cane, walker, or walking stick if you need one. Having a hearing aid could also help you to reduce your fall risk if you're hard of hearing because hearing loss can cause loss of balance and unsteady gait.
- Listening to your body: If you start to feel light-headed or dizzy, you should sit down immediately so you don't end up falling down and hurting yourself.
Unfortunately, even when you take every precaution to prevent a fall, you may still suffer a fall and sustain injury if you are on someone's property and the property is poorly maintained. For example, slippery floors, broken railings, and uneven tile can all result in falls. When falls occur because of problems on someone's property, the property owner can be held accountable. The Villages injury attorney can provide help taking legal action against a negligent property owner responsible for your fall, so give us a call today to learn more.
