Unfortunately, accidents can happen no matter how seriously you take safety at your place of business. A spill may happen and your staff will not realize it until somebody slips. Or there could be a damaged floor tile that goes unnoticed. The list goes on and on.
In the event that you do have a customer slip and fall and get injured as a result, then you have to take some measures to make sure it doesn’t damage your business. Not only that, but you also have to make sure that the customer that got injured is also taken care of. It is recommended to involve a slip and fall lawyer after the fact, so you can generally expect this as a part of the process as well.
In this article, we will go over the necessary steps to take when an injury does happen at your place of business.
Be prepared
Before we get into what happens at the time of the accident, we should talk about preparation. You should have a series of protocols already established so you know things like how to write a slip and fall accident report, who to call when an accident happens and other items.
Training should be done regularly so that everybody knows what they are supposed to do in case of an accident so it is essentially second nature. Safety should be everybody’s responsibility whether they are working in a warehouse or doing work in the office. Since an accident affects the business as a whole, it makes sense that everybody should be on board with the proper safety measures and how to respond to accidents.
Call for help
The health and well being of the person that fell is your top priority at this point. The first thing to do is to call for an ambulance so they can be treated for any injuries. Even if they don’t seem like they are hurt, you should call.
Internal injuries can go unnoticed especially when the adrenaline is running because of the emotion of the accident.
If they are immobile, don’t try to move them until an EMT gets there as you could worsen their injury. If there is bleeding, you should do what you can to stop the bleeding until a medical provider arrives. Do so safely with a first aid kit and make sure to wear gloves.
Document the accident
Besides filing an accident report, you need to have documentation about the entire accident. This means that you should take pictures of the scene of the accident to show if there was any damage or spill that may have caused the injury. It may be the case that the injury was not the fault of any irregularity from the site. Sometimes people just trip over their own feet.
You should also make sure to save the CCTV recording of the area if there is one. Often these videos are recorded over as they are on a loop. Make sure to secure the video before this happens so you have evidence of what actually happened at the time.
For more articles, visit OD Blog.
