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Oregon Bedrail Injuries Lawyers - Bend/Portland, OR

One of the safest places for a person should be a hospital bed or nursing home bed.  This is especially true with bedrails or guards.  However, sometimes the danger is all around that person in the form of the bedrails.  When properly used, bedrails are important safety devices.  However, sometimes bedrails add to the danger because of improper use or incorrect installation.  Patients in nursing homes or hospitals who have bedrails placed on their beds could be at a greater risk for serious personal injury or even wrongful death than if there were no bedrails present.  If you or a loved one were injured due to a nursing home or hospital bedrail, please ask our Oregon bedrail injuries lawyers whether you have rights to protect and how we can start today.

What are Bedrails?

Bedrails are devices that are either built into a bed or can be installed on the bed.  They can be plastic or metal, or a combination.  The purpose of a bedrail is to help keep bed’s occupant on the bed safe from falling off the bed.  They are usually used for fall risk patients or patients that were ordered bed rest.  

Bedrails could be full restraints or full rails, which are around the entire bed, or they could be just partial restraints or half rails, which are just around the top of the bed.  Sometimes bedrails are used to purely block patients from getting up because they cannot stand up without falling or because they are healing from injuries which they are not allowed to stand up (i.e. hip surgery).  Whereas other times bedrails are used as a guide to help people stand up from the bed by having a rail to grab (partial rails).

Dangers of Bedrails

While bedrails can be used to help stop patient from falling out of bed and sustaining injury, especially fall-risk patients, bedrails do create certain dangers.  Patients could become trapped or entangled in a bedrail which could result in broken bones, lacerations, suffocation, and even death.  Some patients may still try to exit the bed with bedrails by climbing over the bedrails.  This means that a patient will actually fall from a higher height than the bed already is, which could result in worse injuries than if there was no bedrail.

Defective bedrails or improperly installed bedrails also are dangerous because patients may rely on a partial bedrail to help them get up from the bed and it could collapse thus causing a fall.  Bedrails can also be dangerous if they are not properly maintained, as damage to the bedrail could result in sharp corners or protruding pieces of metal which could cut or lacerate patients.  This is particularly true if staff is lazy and does not take the bedrails down before transferring a patient because a patient could bang against, get caught in, or be cut by the bedrails.

Bedrail Injuries Due to Oregon Nursing Home Malpractice or Oregon Medical Malpractice

Bedrail injuries are one of the most preventable types of injuries that healthcare providers in nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities, and hospitals should be able to avoid.  This is because healthcare providers control the purchase of, installation, maintenance, and use of bedrails.  When patients suffer bedrail injuries, they are being subjected the the will of the healthcare providers and usually do not have a say on whether or not they want the bedrails there in the first place.  Unfortunately, many patients suffer harm do to this.

Some of the most common bedrail injuries due to Oregon nursing home malpractice and Oregon medical malpractice include the following:

  • Suffocation;
  • Broken bones;
  • Lacerations and cuts;
  • Nerve injuries;
  • Wrongful death; 
  • Fall injuries;
  • Dislocated joints; and
  • Other serious injuries.

Bend/Portland, Oregon Bedrail Injuries Lawyers

If you or a loved one have been seriously injured or killed as a result of nursing home abuse or neglect contact the Oregon Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers at Kuhlman Law at our number below or fill out the intake form.  We offer a free initial case evaluation and handle cases on a contingency fee which means that you pay no money unless we recover.  

We handle cases throughout the state including Bend and Portland Oregon, Redmond, Central Oregon, Multnomah County, Deschutes County, Salem, Eugene, Corvallis, Lane County, Medford, Gresham, Albany, Medford, Beaverton, Umatilla, Pendleton, and Hillsboro.  

We also have an office in Minneapolis, Minnesota and take Nursing Home Abuse cases throughout the Twin Cities, including St. Paul, Hennepin County, Ramsey County, Dakota County, Washington County, Anoka County, Scott County, Blaine, Stillwater, and Saint Paul Minnesota.  

Please act quickly, there is a limited time (Statute of Limitations) in which you can bring a claim under the law. 

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For more information on Medical Malpractice and Nursing Home Abuse, please also visit – StoppingMedicalMistakes.com

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