What Should I Do After Being Hurt on a Ski Lift?

Most people never expect to find themselves seriously injured on a ski lift. In fact, most people who suffer ski injuries do so while they are actively skiing, but this still raises the question of what to do after you get hurt on a ski lift, especially if you believe that the owner or manager of the property maintaining the ski lift is potentially, fully, or partly responsible for your injuries. Ski injuries impact many different people and can leave them with devastating injuries and expensive medical costs that can follow them for years. 

You can search online for queries like “what to do after I got hurt on a ski lift,” but your most helpful and valuable information will be obtained by consulting with an experienced personal injury lawyer. A knowledgeable personal injury lawyer who has brought previous cases against ski resorts can assist you in understanding what your case could look like and also some of the key issues that you need to consider in this process.

Ski lift injuries can and do happen, but this does not always mean that you are eligible to pursue a lawsuit. Ski resorts do have a legal responsibility to ensure that they have done everything possible to minimize accident risks, and this includes doing proper maintenance and evaluation of equipment, such as ski lifts. If the ski resort failed to do this maintenance or left a serious malfunction or hazard facing skiers, such could lead to devastating injuries and even open personal injury lawsuits. 

One of the most important things to understand is the possibility for “off the hill” injury claims. When you accept the inherent risk of snowboarding and skiing on the slopes, regular negligence laws still apply to all resort properties. This can include personal injury suits associated with employee negligence, dangerous walkways or sidewalks, and any others. 

One other area that can lead to serious injuries is the ski lift itself. Once you have been seriously injured on a ski lift, you should firstly get medical attention. This is primarily because most people don't recognize that some of their injuries may not appear immediately after the accident has happened. The shock of going through the accident can shield your body from experiencing the true pain of your injuries, and some of your injuries might not even visibly appear until hours or even days later. This is what makes it important to be screened for some of these more immediate and harder to diagnose injuries, such as a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord problems. A doctor's diagnosis and treatment plan can help you to determine the types of injuries you have sustained and what you can do next. 

This will also help to establish medical records indicating that you took your health seriously after the accident. This is important because one of the most common challenges in ski lift accidents is when the ski resort claims that you were not seriously hurt because you did not get medical attention right away. As a matter of caution, it is a good idea to get medical attention immediately—especially when you are searching for “what to do after I got hurt on a ski lift.”

Contact Insurance 

You might have already been in touch with people at the ski resort about the injury, especially if it was recorded on their end as an incident when it happened. One thing to be especially careful of is signing any paperwork with the ski resort or their insurance company. You need to read through these materials carefully to ensure that you’re not signing away your rights or waiving your opportunity to file a lawsuit. When they do present you with paperwork, you want to look at it to be sure that the details of the accident have been captured properly, too. This might become important in the future as a form of evidence in your legal case, so it’s important that all the details are accurate. For example, if the ski resort wrote that you were careless and caused the accident, and you sign the paperwork indicating the same, that can be a problem in the future. It’s recommended that you refrain from signing any paperwork whenever possible so that you can instead work with your personal injury lawyer to prepare the case. 

If you realize that you’ve suffered serious injuries and will be coping with the aftermath for years to come, this might be enough information to help you decide to file a legal case. Until you’ve accepted a settlement or signed formal paperwork with the ski resort, you’re still in charge of determining what you need when it comes to a legal claim. If they offered you a settlement amount but it doesn’t seem to cover your basic medical bills, you’re within your rights to decline signing and to instead partner with a ski lift injury lawyer to file a suit. The filing of a suit itself could be enough to encourage the other side to think about settlement options. 

Think About Filing a Ski Lift Case

After you've obtained appropriate medical diagnosis and treatment plans, the next step is to evaluate your possibility for a ski lift case. You may need to communicate with your own health insurance company, the liability insurance company, or the ski resort. Although ski lifts are very simple mechanical devices with a high degree of safety, equipment failures or people related failures do occur which could lead to catastrophic injuries. In these circumstances, you may be eligible to pursue compensation with the help of a lawyer. 

When any injury occurs over the course of a ski lift ride, such as before unloading or after loading, the cause is often poor maintenance by the ski area operator or inappropriate engineering designs or manufacturing defects. Some research shows that the vast majority of all lift accidents happen while the skier is unloading or loading and can be associated with improper operation by the lift attendant. The lift operator has a duty to exercise the highest degree of care against the skier's duty to pay attention. Furthermore, the operator must have clearly posted information and safety instructions and have the right skills to board the lift. Too many unloading accidents happen due to operator negligence caused by inadequate snow maintenance or inappropriate ramps.