Patient Fractures Hip When Falling Out of Bed

I’m Katelyn Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we explain the law in simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss personal injury law topics.

Today’s question comes from a caller who wanted to sue a hospital that permitted her husband, a patient at the facility, to fall out of bed and fracture his hip. She wanted to know if such care rose to the level of medical malpractice.

In general, a hospital owes a duty of care to its patients, and in most situations, keeping the patient secured in bed would qualify as medical care.

However, if her husband were not a patient but was visiting a patient and fell while napping on a cot provided by the hospital for family members, the question of legal responsibility would involve legal principles applying to premises liability, not medical care.

Here, since the caller’s husband was a patient, the hospital acted professionally as a medical service provider. However, Indiana court decisions have held that a claim involving a patient falling from a bed due to a defective rail constituted ordinary negligence, as it did not involve a breach of a duty integral to medical treatment.

Upon further questioning, the wife said that her husband was coming out of sedation for a procedure. One of the staff members admitted that the bed rail should have been secured in the up position but was in the down position due to an oversight.  The husband rolled over in bed and fell to the floor without waking up from the sedation.

Under Indiana law, hospitals owe a duty of reasonable care to their patients. They may be held liable for the negligent acts of their employees performed within the scope of their employment. A hospital may also breach its duty of care if its employees fail to recognize and report abnormalities in a patient’s condition, resulting in injury.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you are a victim of someone’s carelessness, substandard medical care, product defect, work injury, or another personal injury, please call (219) 736-9700 with your questions. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at DavidHolubLaw.com – while there, make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth.”