What to Do After a Slip and Fall in El Paso

The infographic above shows each step in order, starting with what to do while you're still at the scene.

Step 1: Report the Fall to the Property Manager Before You Leave

Report your slip and fall to the property manager, store manager, or building superintendent before you leave. Ask for a written incident report and request a copy. Write down the manager's full name and the date and time of the fall.

Every incident report should capture the details in the table below to protect your claim from the start.

Do not sign the property owner's release form. Do not accept a "courtesy payment" or gift card without attorney review. Both can waive your right to file a premises liability claim. The incident report preserves your version of events; now document the hazard before it disappears.

Step 2: Photograph the Hazard Before It Gets Cleaned Up

Photograph the hazard that caused your slip and fall before it is cleaned up. The property owner can remove the evidence within minutes.

Each element below documents a part of the scene the property owner can alter or remove after your fall.

• The hazard itself: the spill, crack, ice patch, wet floor, or broken step that caused your fall
• Your visible injuries: bruises, cuts, swelling, or redness visible at the scene
• The shoes you were wearing: tread condition and shoe type prove you weren't wearing inappropriate footwear
• The surrounding area: lighting conditions, warning signs or the absence of warning signs, and the wider context of where you fell
• "Wet floor" signs, or proof none were present: photograph the area without signs to show the property owner failed to warn visitors

Phone timestamps establish when each photo was taken. The property owner may argue the hazard didn't exist when you fell. Timestamped photos eliminate that argument. Now that the scene is documented, get the people who saw it.

Step 3: Get Contact Information From Every Witness

Get the name, phone number, and email address from every witness to your slip and fall. Witnesses leave the scene within minutes.

Ask each witness this question: how long was the hazard there before you fell?

A witness who says "that spill was there for 20 minutes before anyone fell" establishes constructive notice, the legal standard proving the property owner should have known about the hazard through reasonable inspection, even if no one reported it (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Gonzalez, 968 S.W.2d 934 (Tex. 1998)).

Ask store employees whether they knew about the hazard. An employee who admits knowledge establishes actual notice, a stronger legal standard than constructive notice.

Witness testimony determines whether a premises liability claim succeeds. The next step protects both your health and your evidence.

Step 4: Seek Medical Attention — Even If You Feel Fine

See a doctor the same day you fall, even if you feel fine at the scene. Slip and fall injuries produce delayed-onset symptoms that don't appear for hours or days. A traumatic brain injury (TBI), internal bleeding, or a hairline fracture may feel like soreness at the scene and become a medical emergency by the next morning.

Immediate medical care matters for two reasons.

First, your health. Delayed-onset TBI symptoms include worsening headache, confusion, nausea, and loss of consciousness (CDC). Internal bleeding produces abdominal pain and swelling that can become life-threatening without treatment. Hairline fractures worsen under continued activity.

Second, your legal claim. Medical records created immediately after the fall are the strongest evidence connecting your injuries to the hazard specifically. A gap between your fall and your first medical visit gives the property owner's insurer grounds to argue your injuries were pre-existing or unrelated to the slip and fall.

An ER visit without insurance costs $1,000 to $5,000+, depending on the imaging required. That cost is a fraction of what an undiagnosed TBI or internal injury costs if left untreated. In El Paso, go to UMC El Paso (Level I Trauma Center) for the most severe injuries, Del Sol Medical Center (Level II Trauma) for serious injuries, or an urgent care facility if your injuries appear less severe.

The contemporaneous medical record your ER visit creates is powerful evidence. The most time-critical evidence of all, though, is surveillance footage.

Step 5: Request Surveillance Footage Before It Gets Overwritten

Surveillance footage is the most powerful evidence of what happened at the scene, and most commercial security cameras overwrite their recordings in 7 to 30 days. Walmart cameras retain footage for roughly 30 days on a rolling loop unless a clip is tagged for preservation. The clock starts the moment you fall.

You can make a verbal request to the property manager to preserve the footage. A verbal request, though, carries no legal consequences if the property owner ignores it. A formal preservation letter (also called a litigation hold notice) from an attorney demands that the property owner retain all surveillance footage of your fall, including at least 2 hours of footage before the incident. Pre-fall footage is the footage that proves the property owner knew about the hazard and failed to clean it up. Without a specific demand, the store may preserve only a short clip of the fall itself and let the pre-fall footage overwrite. This letter triggers legal consequences if the footage is destroyed.

Under Brookshire Brothers, Ltd. v. Aldridge, 438 S.W.3d 9 (Tex. 2014), a grocery store preserved only 8 minutes of footage showing the fall and allowed the rest of the day's video to overwrite. The Texas Supreme Court ruled this was negligence, not intentional spoliation, and the jury was not allowed to presume the missing footage would have helped the plaintiff. Only intentional destruction of footage triggers the harshest sanction: a jury instruction to presume the destroyed footage would have supported your claim. A preservation letter that specifically demands pre-fall footage makes it far harder for the property owner to claim the destruction was accidental.

Contact an attorney within days of your fall to send that preservation letter. Attorney John Aufiero at 915 Injury demands footage preservation within 48 hours of a new client's call, because once the property owner overwrites that recording, the strongest piece of evidence in your case is gone forever. These five steps protect your slip and fall claim; the mistakes below can destroy it.

What Mistakes Destroy a Slip and Fall Claim Before It Starts?

Five mistakes give the property owner's CGL insurer (Commercial General Liability insurance carrier) the ammunition to reduce or deny your claim. The insurer contacts you within days of the incident to close your claim before you see a doctor, hire an attorney, or understand the full value of your injuries.

1. Giving a recorded statement to the property owner's CGL insurer. The insurer pressures you to give a statement before you have an attorney. Anything you say can be used to argue comparative negligence (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §33.001) or pre-existing conditions. You have no legal obligation to provide a recorded statement.
2. Accepting a "courtesy payment" or gift card. The property owner rushes a small payment to close the claim before you understand its full value. Accepting it may waive your right to pursue full compensation. To understand how much your slip and fall claim may be worth, you need a medical evaluation and attorney review first.
3. Leaving without documenting the hazard. If you leave the scene without photographs, the property owner cleans up the hazard and there is no physical evidence that the dangerous condition ever existed.
4. Waiting too long for medical care. A gap between your fall and your first medical visit gives the insurer grounds to argue your injuries are unrelated to the fall or were pre-existing. Every day of delay weakens the connection between the hazard and your injuries.
5. Posting about your fall on social media. Insurers monitor social media accounts. A single photo showing physical activity after your fall undermines your injury claim, even if the photo was taken on a good day between painful ones.

Don't answer further questions from the insurer until you've spoken with an attorney.