When the nursing home calls to tell you your parent fell, the shock and worry take over. That is natural. But what you do in the next few days determines whether you can hold the facility accountable if their negligence caused the fall. Here is what to demand.
Every nursing home is required to document falls in an incident or accident report. This report should include the date and time of the fall, the location, who found the resident, what they were doing, whether staff was present, and what injuries were observed. Request a copy in writing. If the facility says they cannot provide it, put your request in an email so there is a paper trail. They are required to provide it under the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act.
The care plan is the document that outlines every aspect of your loved one's care, including fall prevention measures. If the care plan says the resident requires a bed alarm, a call light within reach, non-slip footwear, or staff assistance with transfers, and the fall happened because those measures were not in place, the facility violated its own care plan. That violation is the foundation of your legal claim.
Nursing homes are required to maintain minimum staffing ratios. If the fall happened at 3 AM and there was one aide covering thirty residents, the facility was understaffed and could not provide the level of supervision the care plan required. Staffing records are the smoking gun in most nursing home fall cases.
What assessment was performed? Was the resident sent to the hospital? Were X-rays or imaging ordered? How long did it take for medical attention to arrive? I have seen cases where a resident fell, was found on the floor, and was put back in bed without any medical evaluation. Eight hours later the family arrives and discovers a broken hip. The delay in diagnosis and treatment is a separate act of negligence on top of the fall itself.
When you visit after the fall, photograph the area where the fall occurred. Is the floor wet? Is the lighting adequate? Is there a grab bar that should be there and is not? Is the bed rail up or down? Are the non-slip socks on the resident's feet or sitting in the drawer? These photos are evidence that the facility cannot control or alter after the fact.
Make sure your loved one is okay after the fall, and stay involved as an active advocate for their care going forward. Some nursing homes are severely understaffed, and the staff may not provide the level of care you expect once the immediate crisis passes. Frequent family presence is one of the single most effective things you can do to make sure your loved one is being cared for properly. Get other family members involved. Visit on different days and at different times. The staff knows when a resident has engaged family.
They will tell you it was unavoidable. They will tell you your loved one was confused and got up on their own. They will minimize the injury and assure you it will not happen again. Maybe that is true. But maybe the facility cut staffing that night to save money and nobody was there to respond when the call light went off. Falls that lead to injuries in a nursing home are generally determined to be due to either negligence or malpractice - they are not treated like an ordinary slip and fall. The cause of the fall is a fact-specific question that requires reviewing the records, not a question to take the facility's word on.
Call me at 312-500-4500 before you sign anything or accept any explanation. I will review the records and tell you whether the facility failed your loved one. The consultation is free, and there is no fee unless we win.
It should go without saying that the first thing to do is make sure your loved one is okay after a slip and fall at a nursing home. But if the nursing home staff has been negligent and allowed your loved one to fall, you should be an active and present advocate for your loved one. Some nursing homes are severely underfunded, and the staff may not provide the level of care you might expect.
Falls that lead to injuries in a nursing home are generally determined to be due to either negligence or malpractice. It’s usually not treated like a traditional slip and fall case. Because the legal implications of different circumstances vary quite a bit, it can be helpful to gather information regarding the fall.
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In many cases, yes. Nursing homes are required to assess each resident's fall risk and implement a care plan to prevent falls. If the facility failed to follow fall prevention protocols - such as assisting high-risk residents with mobility, keeping walkways clear, maintaining adequate staffing, or installing grab bars - they can be held liable for injuries from a fall.
The most common causes include inadequate staffing (not enough aides to help residents move safely), wet or slippery floors, poor lighting, lack of handrails or grab bars, failure to use bed alarms for high-risk residents, improper use of wheelchairs or walkers, and medication side effects that cause dizziness or confusion that the staff failed to monitor.
Elderly residents are particularly vulnerable to hip fractures, wrist fractures, head injuries including subdural hematomas, spinal compression fractures, and soft tissue injuries. For frail elderly patients, a hip fracture can be life-threatening - studies show that up to 30% of elderly hip fracture patients die within one year of the injury.
Absolutely. Residents with dementia are at higher fall risk, and the nursing home is required to account for that in their care plan. If the facility knew your loved one had dementia and was a fall risk, they should have implemented additional precautions - bed alarms, one-on-one assistance, closer monitoring. Failure to do so is negligence.
Request a copy of the incident report immediately. Take photographs of your loved one's injuries. Ask the facility for the care plan and fall risk assessment. Make sure your loved one receives proper medical treatment. Document the date, time, and circumstances of the fall. Then contact a nursing home attorney at 312-500-4500 to discuss your options.
Claims under the Illinois Nursing Home Care Act must be filed within two years from the date the cause of action accrued or could reasonably have been ascertained. For wrongful death cases arising from a nursing home fall, the Illinois Wrongful Death Act (740 ILCS 180/2) sets a two-year deadline from the date of death. When the underlying conduct involves medical care provided by a physician at the facility, the medical malpractice statute of limitations and four-year statute of repose under 735 ILCS 5/13-212 can also apply. Evidence in nursing homes is overwritten or rotated out quickly - videotape over fall locations is often deleted within days, staffing records and incident reports get archived or destroyed on internal schedules - so call as soon as possible after the fall.
The Illinois Nursing Home Care Act (210 ILCS 45/) gives every nursing home resident statutory rights to adequate and appropriate care, freedom from neglect, the right to participate in care planning, and the right to make complaints without retaliation. For a fall injury case, the Act allows recovery of compensatory damages (medical bills, future medical care, pain and suffering, loss of normal life, and in catastrophic cases life care plan expenses), and punitive damages where the facility's conduct was willful and wanton - corporate-level staffing cuts that produced predictable injuries, repeated citations for the same fall-prevention failures, or facility falsification of records. Critically, under 210 ILCS 45/3-602, the prevailing resident recovers reasonable attorney fees from the facility, on top of the damages award. This fee-shifting provision is one of the most important features of the statute and one of the reasons facilities settle viable claims rather than litigating them.
The strongest nursing home fall cases prove that the facility deviated from the resident's own care plan. Every resident at every facility has a written care plan that documents fall risk and the specific prevention measures required: bed alarms, call lights within reach, non-slip footwear, side rails, staff assistance with transfers, scheduled checks. When the fall happened because one or more of those measures was not in place, the deviation is documented in the facility's own records. Additional evidence includes staffing records for the relevant shift (showing the facility was understaffed and could not provide the required supervision), the incident report (which often contains admissions by staff about what they did or did not do), prior IDPH inspection citations for fall-prevention failures at the same facility (showing a pattern of conduct), and the medical records after the fall (showing whether the facility delayed in obtaining medical evaluation - itself a separate act of negligence). The combination of care plan deviation plus understaffing plus prior IDPH citations is the typical winning fact pattern.
Would you like to know more about nursing home fall injuries and the lawyers who help injured people who had a slip and fall in a nursing home?
If you or a loved one is dealing with a situation like this, give us a call any time, day or night. We are here to help. 312-500-4500
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Scott DeSalvo founded DeSalvo Law to help injured people throughout Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Licensed to practice law in Illinois since 1998, IARDC #6244452, Scott has represented over 3,000 clients in personal injury, workers compensation, and accident cases.
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