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Philadelphia Water Park Injury Attorneys

Each year in America, thousands of people will be injured and unfortunately some will be wrongfully killed as a result of an accident or event at a water park. Most times, the water park or amusement park will claim that it was a “freak accident” and there were no faults with the water park or amusement park attraction. As the weather gets hot, adults become kids as they are drawn to the thrills of water parks. However, improper maintenance, supervision, and design of a water park attraction can often lead to drowning, submersion injuries, and unfortunately, wrongful death. In tightened economies, many parks fail to maintain the equipment in proper and safe operating condition and may in fact skimp on supervision and fail to properly train or hire staff members. Many times there are not proper background checks performed on employees or staff is not given proper water safety instructions and may often be on summer exchange programs from foreign countries. If the surfaces adjacent to the water park amusement are slippery and not treated with non-skid materials, dangerous slips and falls can occur, resulting in serious injuries such as bone fractures, skull fractures, spinal cord injuries, paraplegia, quadriplegia, chest or heart injuries, neck injuries, back injuries, crush fractures, drowning, and death.

Our experienced Philadelphia water park accident lawyers have litigated cases involving improperly designed, improperly maintained, and improperly filled, and defective water slides and water park rides. When a water ride is over or under filled, riders can travel either too rapidly, striking their heads or spinal column against hard surfaces or side rails, or be ejected or thrown from a slide or fall from a great height. The owners and operators of water slides and water parks have an obligation to warn riders of potential risks involved and any failure to do so may be considered to be an unreasonable and unsafe exposure to harm.

Often, wave pools in water parks are packed to capacity, making it difficult for a limited number of lifeguards on duty to be able to see and adequately supervise all of the swimmers. Many times an inexperienced swimmer will be pulled down to the deeper water from the suction of the wave pool and tragically drown or suffer serious injuries. In addition, many swimmers have been drawn and sucked into pool drains. Additionally, many times public swimming pools and water park attractions are not properly cleaned, making it difficult for a guard to see below the surface.

We have noted in many cases that many swimming pools have failed to adhere to the 2007 Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act which was designed to prevent the tragic and hidden hazard of drain entrapments in swimming pools, including wave pools. Many park owners have no idea what the Act is or fail to comply with it. The Pennsylvania swimming pool accident lawyers of Reiff and Bily have been litigating swimming pool, drowning, and water park accident cases for over three decades and are well aware that new water park technology and water park designers push the safety envelope when they are attempting to boost the thrill factor, many times compromising the safety of the guests. Our investigations have revealed that amusement park and water park operators often put profits over safety as their top concern. We have investigated and litigated the following types of water park accidents: falls from water rides, entrapment in a water ride, back and vertebrae crush fractures by water slide malfunction, crashes and abrupt stopping due to poor design and inadequate water flow, unsafe entrance or exit from rides, slips and falls on wet surfaces near park rides, broken bones as a result of improper crowd or personnel control, improper passenger stacking and crowd control, closed head trauma, and drowning and submersion accident.

If you or a loved one has sustained a water park accident or swimming pool injury or death, don’t trust the park or pool operator to do the right thing. Over 270 million people will visit an amusement or water park in the United States this year and most amusement park and water park operators have powerful legal defense teams on their side and will have insurance people work on their case right away to their interests rather than those of the victims. It is important for a water park accident and amusement park accident victim not to sign any papers or agreements without consulting an experienced Pennsylvania swimming pool accident lawyer first. A skilled water park accident attorney will ask the following questions:

Was the accident the result of negligence on the part of the amusement park?
Was the water park attraction maintained and inspected as required by state laws?
Was the ride accident the result of defective parts or components of the ride?
Was there an electrical, mechanical, or metallurgical failure?
Was there a safety or system failure?
Were the operators properly trained and given background checks?
Was the accident caused by operator error?

An experienced Pennsylvania water park accident attorney will diligently investigate a water park or swimming pool accident and drowning death, and water park accident claim with third party experts and accident reconstructionists to insure that the victim’s rights are properly protected and that they receive the maximum compensation for their injuries and losses. The skilled Philadelphia catastrophic injury attorneys and wrongful death lawyers at Reiff and Bily have represented generations of victims and their families who were catastrophically injured or unfortunately sustained wrongful death. All of our trial lawyers have received settlements, awards, or verdicts in excess of $1 million dollars or more and have been nominated as Pennsylvania Super Lawyers from 2005 through 2011 consecutively.

Philadelphia Water Park Injury Attorneys

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