When you take part in sports, there’s always a risk of injury. One wrong foot placement and you could find yourself out of action for months. When this happens, there isn’t much you can do, apart from rehab and rest.
But what do you do when you suffer a personal injury during a sporting activity that was caused by someone else?
Establish responsibility
When you’re hurt in a sporting injury, one of the first things to do is establish who – if anyone – was responsible. It may be that your injury was just an accident, the result of a misplaced step or a misjudged landing on your part. But perhaps you were hurt because of someone else’s negligence.
Working out whether someone else was responsible can be challenging, particularly when you think that you may shoulder some of the responsibility for the accident. This is particularly relevant for injuries sustained during contact team sports.
In many cases, you won’t be able to assign any blame to anyone else when your accident happens during activities like this due to their very nature. However, there are certainly times when someone else might be responsible for the injury. This could be down to negligent ground care, inadequate training or poor facilities.
How you might be injured
You may not necessarily have been injured in a team sport. It’s possible that you might be injured in a gym while going about your individual workouts. You may have been hurt while horse-riding or while taking part in motor sports.
If someone other than you was responsible for ensuring your safety during the activity, they could also be responsible for you suffering the accident. This could be down to the fact that you weren’t given the right kit or the correct safety information. It could also be due to a malfunctioning or faulty piece of equipment. For example, your horse’s reins might be broken or the motorcycle you’re riding may not have had the necessary servicing.
There is also the possibility that you were injured as a spectator. This could be down to inadequate crowd control or overcrowding, bad lighting, uneven steps or poor venue maintenance. This includes incidents like slipping on a spill that no one had cleaned up or even noticed.
Taking action
If you’ve been injured in a sporting accident, you might want to take action against the person or organisation responsible. This could be anyone from a trainer to another player – in the case of bad tackles or even violence – as well as the owner of a facility or even match officials.
An injury could stop you playing the sport you love. It could also mean you suffer even more serious consequences, including being unable to work. This can then result in a loss of earnings and real financial difficulties. This can be hugely problematic if you require certain medical treatments after the injury.
That’s why it’s possible to make a claim against someone when you’ve been the victim of their negligence. It can help you obtain the financial help you’re entitled to. By making a claim, you can also alert the person or organisation responsible for the injury that something has gone wrong. This can prove the catalyst for them addressing the problem and preventing it happening to anyone else.
Image copyright: Damir Sencar
