When you need to get diapers, groceries, toiletries, or you want to look for a gift for someone, you may think about a trip to Target. While you may be focused on leaving the store with the things on your shopping list, you may end up leaving there with something you weren’t planning for—an injury.

Because Target, just like any big box store, has many products stocked on shelves and many customers coming and going through their doors, it is possible that dangers could be lurking around any aisle—dangers that could cause a slip and fall accident. When a slip and fall occurs at a store such as Target, a customer can suffer moderate to severe injuries, especially to the bones and muscles in the back.

Five of the most common types of back injuries that occur in slip and fall accidents include:

  1. Muscle sprains. When someone feels himself about to fall, he may try to catch himself. When this happens, the way the body moves can result in a lower back muscle strain or sprain.
  2. Compression fractures. When someone falls on his back, he can compress the bony vertebra which can cause tingling, numbness, and muscle spasms, along with other problems. This especially occurs to people with osteoporosis or those over 50 years old.  The pain can be minor but can get worse with daily activities.
  3. Herniated discs. When a customer suddenly twists during a fall, a disc between the vertebrae can slip out of place and put pressure on the nerves. If after a fall a customer feels tingling and pain that radiates down his leg, he may have suffered a herniated disc.
  4. Tailbone injuries. When someone falls backwards, he may fall onto his tailbone. This can cause the tailbone to bruise or can lead to a fracture of the coccyx. When the tailbone is injured, ligaments that surround it are generally also injured.
  5. Incomplete spinal cord injuries. When a customer falls, it is possible to fracture the vertebrae. When this occurs, a loss of sensation along with the inability to move one’s legs will take place.

While some people might suffer minor muscle strains in slip and fall accidents, others may sustain serious spinal cord injuries. In either event, innocent customers should not be left to deal with the financial strains of their injuries. However, stores and its insurance companies might make customers believe otherwise by directing some of the blame on customers instead of owning up to their negligence.

 

Damian Mallard, Esq.
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Board Certified Sarasota Personal Injury Attorney