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Reviewed by an award-winning attorney at DALLI MARINO
John Dalli, Esq. is a founding member of Dalli & Marino, LLP, and has been litigating and trying complex personal injury and medical malpractice matters in New York City, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, Nassau County, Suffolk County and Westchester since 1996.
A fall in a nursing home can change everything. What begins as a routine evening can end with a fractured hip, a prolonged hospital stay, and a loved one left with lasting physical setbacks they may never fully recover from. In the most serious cases, a fall and its complications can be fatal.
These are not rare outcomes. Falls are one of the most common and serious incidents in long-term care facilities, and the injuries they cause can be severe. The question families are often left asking is a painful but important one: was this an unavoidable accident, or was it a sign that the facility failed to provide proper care?
The answer matters, because families have legal rights when a nursing home’s failures lead to preventable harm.
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How Common Are Falls in Nursing Homes?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 50% to 75% of nursing home residents experience at least one fall each year, and many residents fall more than once. A typical 100-bed nursing home can see 100 to 200 falls annually, highlighting just how frequently these incidents occur in long-term care settings.
These falls are often serious. Data cited by the CDC shows that 10% to 20% of nursing home falls result in significant injuries, such as fractures or head trauma, and 2% to 6% lead specifically to broken bones. The CDC also estimates that approximately 1,800 nursing home residents die each year from fall-related injuries, while many others suffer lasting complications.
Importantly, even these numbers may understate the true scope of the problem. A recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that nursing homes failed to report about 43% of falls involving major injuries and hospitalizations, raising serious concerns about underreporting.
When Is a Nursing Home Fall Considered Normal and When Is It Neglect?
Not every fall in a nursing home is the result of negligence. Some residents have fall risks that cannot be fully eliminated, even when a facility is doing everything correctly. Falls can happen despite reasonable precautions, and a single fall does not automatically mean a facility acted wrongly.
That said, many falls and the fractures that follow them occur because proper precautions were not taken. When a facility knows a resident is at risk and fails to act on that knowledge, or when conditions at the facility contribute to an unsafe environment, the situation looks very different.
Signs that a fall may reflect neglect rather than an unavoidable accident include:
- Failure to assess or document a resident’s fall risk
- Lack of supervision or assistance during high-risk activities such as walking, transfers, or toileting
- Ignoring or not following the resident’s individual care plan
- Inadequate staffing levels or poorly trained staff
- Delayed response after a fall, or failure to monitor the resident appropriately afterward
- Repeated falls without any increase in safety measures or care plan updates
When one or more of these factors are present, the fall may not have been inevitable.
Legal Responsibility of Nursing Homes
Nursing homes are not just places of housing and basic care; they are licensed healthcare facilities held to a professional standard of safety and supervision. That means they are legally required to take reasonable steps to protect residents from preventable harm, including dangerous falls.
When a resident is known to be at fall risk, the facility is expected to follow through on its own care plans and safety protocols. These obligations are not optional. They are part of the basic duty of care owed to every resident.
When a facility fails in that duty, the law allows those failures to be examined in terms of negligence. In a legal case, the focus is not just on the fact that a fall occurred, but on whether the facility met the standard of care it was required to provide under the circumstances.
If it did not, and that failure contributed to a broken bone or death, the facility may be held legally responsible through a personal injury claim or wrongful death claim. These claims allow residents and their families to pursue compensation for the harm they’ve suffered, which may include medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, pain and suffering, and other losses connected to the injury.
How a Nursing Home Neglect Attorney Can Help
After a serious fall, families are often left with more questions than answers. What exactly happened? Was the resident supervised properly? Could the injury have been prevented?
Unfortunately, those answers are not always easy to get. Nursing home cases involve detailed medical records, internal incident reports, care plans, and staffing records, all of which are controlled by the facility. At the same time, nursing homes and their insurance providers typically begin reviewing and defending these incidents immediately.
That imbalance can make it difficult for families to get a clear, complete picture of what occurred.
A nursing home neglect attorney can step in to uncover that information and evaluate whether the facility met its legal obligations. That process may include:
- Investigating how the fall occurred and whether proper supervision and safety protocols were in place
- Reviewing medical records, care plans, and incident reports for inconsistencies or warning signs
- Analyzing staffing levels and facility practices at the time of the injury
- Consulting with medical and nursing experts to determine whether the fall and resulting fracture were preventable
- Pursuing compensation for medical expenses, rehabilitation, pain and suffering, and other related losses
In many cases, legal involvement is not about immediately filing a lawsuit. It is about getting answers that families have not been given and holding facilities accountable when the standard of care has not been met.
What to Do If Your Loved One Falls in a Nursing Home
How families respond in the days and weeks after a nursing home fall can matter significantly if a legal claim is later pursued. Taking the right steps early helps preserve evidence and ensures the situation is properly documented.
If your loved one has been injured in a fall, consider taking these steps:
- Seek immediate medical attention, even if initial injuries appear minor
- Document visible injuries with photographs as soon as possible
- Request a copy of the facility’s incident report related to the fall
- Ask specific questions about supervision, staffing levels, and care plan compliance at the time of the incident
- Consult a nursing home neglect attorney if the facility’s explanation is unclear, inconsistent, or incomplete
Acting promptly matters. Evidence can disappear, memories fade, and documentation becomes harder to obtain over time.
Talk to the New York Nursing Home Neglect Attorneys at Dalli & Marino
A broken bone after a nursing home fall is not always just an accident. Families deserve honest answers about what happened, what the facility knew, and whether the injury could have been prevented.
At Dalli & Marino, we have been representing elderly residents and their families in nursing home fall cases for more than 30 years. If your loved one suffered a fracture or other serious injury, contact us for a free consultation. There is no obligation, and no upfront cost to you. We can review the facts of your situation and help you understand whether the facility may have fallen short of its legal obligations.
