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Without the right safety precautions in place, an idyllic summer day at the pool can quickly turn tragic. Swimming pools are surrounded by risks that can lead to catastrophic injuries or even death. While swimmers may be unaware of the risks, pool owners have a responsibility to maintain a safe environment. Failure to uphold this responsibility is considered negligence, and negligent parties can be held responsible for resulting damages.
Swimming pool accidents in Waukegan often cause devastating injuries that require substantial medical treatment and a long recovery period. If you’ve been injured in a swimming pool accident caused by someone else’s negligence, a skilled slip and fall injury lawyer can help you seek compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, and other damages.
Swimming pool injuries can range from slip and fall accidents to diving-related spinal cord injuries or even drowning. Many of these injuries are preventable with proper precautions. Some of the most common causes of pool accidents in Waukegan include:
In Illinois, property owners must exercise reasonable care to protect people from unsafe conditions around swimming pools. Public pool operators are required to follow regulations for sanitation and safety in the Illinois Swimming Facility Act and abide by Illinois Department of Public Health regulations for pool design, operation, and maintenance. An experienced Waukegan lawyer can help victims determine if their swimming pool accident was caused by a pool owner or operator’s negligence.
Getting compensation for damages in a wrongful death or swimming pool accident hinges on proving negligence. A knowledgeable lawyer achieves this by showing the pool owner or operator breached their duty of care to the victim, causing measurable injuries. The following four elements must be shown to prove negligence.
Proving negligence begins by establishing the pool owner or operator’s duty of care to the victim. This can be a property owner’s responsibility to maintain a safe environment or a public pool operator’s failure to follow safe and sanitary conditions.
Once duty of care is defined, you can prove how it was breached. For example, a property owner’s failure to use a self-latching gate or supervise children may be considered a breach of duty of care. Slippery surfaces, defective equipment, and chemical hazards can all be defined as a pool owner or operator’s breach of duty of care.
There must be a connection between the defendant’s breach of duty of care and the resulting injuries. The breach of duty must be the cause of injuries sustained by the victim. For example, the slippery surface surrounding a pool can only be related to a near-drowning if it caused the victim to fall into the pool.
A victim must be able to show the damages they suffered to be awarded compensation. Some of the most common examples of damages awarded in swimming pool injury cases include medical expenses and lost wages due to time missed from work. However, victims can also get compensation for emotional damages. For example, the parent of a child who drowned may recover compensation for emotional trauma.
Negligence is often the cause of swimming pool accidents. However, proving negligence in these cases can be complicated. If you have been injured or lost a loved one in a swimming pool accident, you do not have to deal with the legal process of seeking compensation on your own. The personal injury attorneys at Schlack & Bassmaji have over two decades of experience handling Waukegan swimming pool injury cases. We are prepared to fight for your right to compensation following this devastating incident. Contact us today.