Did you or a loved one get injured in a watercraft accident? Read these 3 boat accident questions we are often asked, then call our lawyers.
1) What type of injuries are typical in a boat accident?
In watercraft accidents, you can see a myriad of injuries. There are all sorts of issues with boats. Sometimes people get ejected from boats. They end up having concussions or serious head injuries. Some really terrible accidents are related with propellers and people getting entangled and things. We’ve seen situations where people are ejected from boats and hit other boats or hit other objects in the waterway. You can see a myriad of injuries, from simple fractures to unfortunate cases where people are killed.
2) When should I file a claim for a boating accident?
A boating accident report should be filed as soon as possible with the responsible agency. Sometimes on smaller lakes they’re patrolled by sheriffs and you want to report it to the sheriff’s department right away. The sheriff’s department for Lake Erie does a lot of the investigation, so you want to make sure that they’re put on notice, and you should file your accident report as soon as possible.
You have an obligation as a boater to make sure that it’s filed properly and that people are put on notice of the accident. Those reports serve a purpose down the road in identifying owners of boats, and things of that nature, if there are claims in the future.
3) Who is liable in my boat accident claim?
Boating injury cases are kind of a different animal, because there’s not many of them that you see on a regular basis. There are a lot of factors that come into play when figuring out who is responsible for your injuries. Of course the operator of the boat that you’re in is fully responsible for your safety, and if something happens to you as a result of their negligence, then of course it’s an easy case and they’re liable for your injuries. There could be some cases where there are a couple different boats involved in an accident and the boats don’t take proper care to make sure that they don’t come in contact with one another. In those instances, there may be another boat involved in a situation that would bring in coverage of both boats. We had indicated, on many occasions, sometimes two people can be responsible for an accident, so two separate drivers of boats could be responsible.
If there’s a government entity that’s maintaining a waterway and they leave something in the water that becomes an obstruction and causes a boating accident, that municipality could be on the hook. If that happened, we want to make sure what municipality was responsible for maintaining this waterway and whether or not they did indeed do something negligent in causing this boat to crash.
Were you or a loved one involved in an accident on a waterway and have questions about watercraft injuries? Check out these 3 boat accident questions, then contact our Hamburg boat accident lawyers at Chiacchia and Fleming today for a free confidential consultation and case evaluation. Let our experience work for you.
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