PA Garage Door Injury Lawyers
A garage door is oftentimes the largest and heaviest mechanical device in one’s home with an average weight of more then 400 pounds. Each year more then 30,000 people are injured by automatic garage doors, a large number of them small children. Garage door accidents are oftentimes catastrophic resulting in broken bones, amputations, severe head and spinal cord injuries, and sadly even death. Many garage door accidents occur as a result of a garage door manufacturer defect, or a defective garage door protection system. There are however, a number of garage door accidents that occur due to faulty springs, structural defects, improper or negligent installation, repairs, or failure to maintain automatic garage door systems.
In attempt to save lives and reduce the number of adults and children who suffer catastrophic and other debilitating garage door injuries, The Consumer Product Safety Commission has required all automatic garage door systems manufactured in or after 1993 to have a built in safety reversing or automatic shut off system. This safety and accident avoidance system is designed to automatically stop and reverse the garage door when an object enters the doors path on its way to the ground. While these systems include photoelectric sensors mounted on the garage door jambs, and pressure-sensitive sensors inserted on the bottom of the garage door, the Consumer Product Safety Commission found that 40% of them failed to work properly, and the garage doors that failed to reverse came down with enough pressure to crush a small child.
Recent statistics released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission indicate that 77.6 % of garage door accidents occur at a person’s own home, and 59% of the injuries involve severe injuries to hands and fingers. Additional statistics investigating 7,557 garage door accidents reveal that thousands of victims were injured by a falling garage door, while hundreds more were injured as a result of a faulty or worn out torsion springs. The remainder of the accidents occurring were a result of a garage door in need of repair, or in a "race to beat the door" as it was being lowered.
While more than 30,000 people a year are injured in garages and garage door related accidents the following is a list of injuries and factors most oftentimes responsible for there occurrence;
Most Common Injuries as a result of a Falling or Broken Garage Door include but are not limited to:
- Amputated, Hands, Fingers, Arms, and Limbs
- Severed, or dislocated, Hands and Fingers
- Crushed, broken or fractured, Hands and Fingers
- Crushing, or crushed to Death by the weight of a Garage Door
- Brain and Head Injuries
- Concussions
- Fractured Skulls
- Broken Arms and Legs,
- Spinal Injuries
- Paralysis
- Broken, fractured, severed, and crushed Toes
- Broken, Fractured, or Shattered Jaws
- Dislocated and Broken Shoulders
- Collarbone Injuries
- Deep cuts and Lacerations
- Broken Back
- Asphyxiation
- Suffocation
- Wrongful Death
Most Common Causes of Garage door related accidents include but are not limited to:
- Defectively manufactured or defectively designed garage doors
- Negligent or Improper garage door installation
- Garage door crushing
- Improperly mounted or Defective Photoelectric garage door sensors
- Defective pressure sensitive garage door sensors
- Riding the garage Door
- Negligently installed garage door sensors
- Failure to Supervise Children playing in or around an automatic garage door
- Broken or Improperly Installed garage door trolley tracks, or trolley wheels
- Faulty garage door sensors
- Structural or architecture defects resulting in automatic garage door failure
- Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
- Inadequate repairs
- Entrapment
- Faulty and negligently repaired garage door sensors
- Improperly or negligently Installed garage door opener
- Failure to adequately repair, replace, or maintain automatic garage door system
- Negligent Mounting of Garage Door Opener (recommended height is 5 feet)
- Faulty garage door opener
- Broken or stretched garage door torsion springs
- Faulty garage door torsion springs
Our skilled Garage and Garage door accident lawyers possess decades of experience in the arenas of product liability, premises liability, garage door defects, negligence and have decades of experience achieving substantial awards for generations of clients.
If you or someone you love was injured or killed while in a garage or by a garage door, know you are not alone, and you like so many others may be entitled to financial compensation from a garage door manufacture, or other negligent party. Call the experienced Philadelphia catastrophic injury lawyers Reiff & Bily today at (800) 421-9595 or contact us online to request your free confidential and no obligation consultation.
