October 30, 2025 | Personal Injury
Falls are a leading cause of unintentional death in the United States. Fall victims also account for over 25% of all emergency room visits for accidental injuries.
People who fall can experience painful disabilities, significant medical expenses, lost income, and diminished future earnings. Under Florida law, those who are injured by someone else’s negligence can generally seek compensation for their economic and non-economic losses.
How the fall occurred could determine the injuries you suffer and who may be liable for them.
Categorizing Falling Accidents
Falls are broadly categorized as elevated and same-elevation falls. Elevated falls happen when a person falls from a higher level to a lower level. A fall from a ladder or a tumble down a flight of stairs would qualify as an elevated fall, as would a construction accident involving a fall into a ditch or trench.
Same-elevation falls happen when the victim falls on a flat or substantially flat surface. Thus, a same-elevation fall might occur when someone falls from a standing or sitting position onto the ground. Falling accidents are often categorized based on their causes.
Slip and Fall Accidents
A slip and fall accident happens when the victim’s feet lose traction and slide. When the feet slip, they typically move forward, causing the victim to fall backward. They may strike the back of their head, as well as their buttocks and back, on the ground when they land.
Trip and Fall Accidents
A trip and fall accident occurs when something unexpectedly interrupts the victim’s stride. For example, you might catch your toe on something, or your foot might land awkwardly. The victim’s momentum carries their body forward, and they fall on the front of their body since they can’t use their feet to catch themselves.
What Is the Difference Between Slipping and Tripping?
Besides the mechanics of the fall, slips and trips differ in their causes and the injuries they produce. These characteristics are important because they can affect the compensation that may be available for any injury-related losses.
Causes of Slips
Different conditions tend to cause trips and slips. Since slips happen when the feet lose traction, the most common causes of slips are slick surfaces.
The following conditions can result in a slip and fall accident:
- Ice
- Water puddles
- Liquid spills
- Sand, gravel, or other particulates
- Polished floors
Some common scenarios that might cause you to slip include water on a restroom floor, puddles near an entryway, and dropped food or drinks on a restaurant floor.
Causes of Trips
Trips cover many other conditions that can cause someone to lose their footing.
The following conditions may cause the victim’s foot to land or move unexpectedly:
- Unpainted or loose steps or curbs
- Raised door thresholds
- Objects in a pathway
- Potholes
- Uneven or raised sidewalk sections
- Loose carpets or rugs
Common tripping incidents include falls in parking lots due to broken pavement or inside buildings caused by unmarked elevation changes.
Typical Injuries in Falling Accidents
The injuries a falling accident can cause may also differ depending on whether you slip or trip. After a slip, you’ll often fall backward, leading you to injure the back of your body when you land.
Conversely, trips typically result in a fall forward. You may also hurt your knees, hands, or arms as you try to catch yourself.
Certain injuries are more common than others after a slip or trip and fall accident.
Fractured Hip
As you fall backward, you could break your hip when your buttocks hit the ground. You may also try to catch yourself by sitting down or twisting your body, causing you to land awkwardly on your pelvis.
A fractured hip is a serious injury, particularly for older victims. It’s extremely painful and could limit your mobility, at least temporarily.
Back Strain
A back strain occurs when the victim hyperextends the muscles and tendons in the back, often causing:
- Muscle pain
- Weakness
- Back spasms
- Stiffness
If you only pull a muscle or tendon, you might recover within a few weeks. However, torn muscles or tendons could take several weeks or months to heal.
Whiplash
Whiplash is a neck injury that arises when the muscles, tendons, and ligaments become strained. Although this injury is most commonly associated with car accidents, it can also happen in a fall if the head whips forward or backward and hyperextends the neck.
Concussion
A concussion is a mild brain injury that occurs when the movement of the head causes the brain to move inside the skull. The jolt causes the brain tissues to swell, potentially resulting in confusion, memory loss, headache, and loss of coordination.
Wrist Fractures
Wrist fractures are commonly associated with trip and fall accidents. They happen when the victim stretches their hands out in front of their body to catch themselves during a fall. There are ten bones in the forearm and wrist. The impact from a fall can fracture one or more of them.
Determining Liability in Falling Accidents
Liability for falling accidents is determined using the principles of negligence. The same premises liability laws apply whether you slipped or tripped. More specifically, a property owner is liable for a falling accident if they failed to exercise reasonable care in finding and addressing falling hazards.
To establish liability, your lawyer must prove that the party responsible for maintaining the premises knew or should have known about the hazard. You must also show that the property owner unreasonably neglected visitor safety by failing to post a warning or fix the hazard.
Property owners may argue that they needed more time to discover and correct transient conditions. This means you might also need to present evidence that they knew or were warned about the condition and failed to take action.
Schedule a Free Consultation With a St. Petersburg Slip and Fall Accident Attorney from Graves Thomas Injury Law Group Today
Slips and trips differ in their causes and effects. However, the same laws govern liability for these accidents and the compensation victims can recover. A skilled lawyer from Graves Thomas Injury Law Group can help prove liability and secure meaningful damages.
Call us today to schedule a free consultation with our St. Petersburg personal injury lawyers.
If you’ve been injured in an accident, please contact our experienced personal injury lawyers at Graves Thomas Injury Law Group to schedule a free consultation today. We have three convenient locations in Florida, including Vero Beach, St. Petersburg, and Port St. Lucie.
Graves Thomas Injury Law Group – Vero Beach
2651 20th St
Vero Beach, FL 32960
(772) 758-1966
Graves Thomas Injury Law Group – Port St. Lucie
10805 SW Tradition Square Unit 024A
Port St. Lucie, FL 34987
(772) 677-0373
Graves Thomas Injury Law Group – St. Petersburg
200 Central Ave Suite 304
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
(772) 569-8155
