Misstep in the right direction
Chris learns a valuable lesson when a customer left a stray item of stock on the floor.
Chris loved the countryside. The hustle and bustle of city life never appealed to him but he didn’t mind a quicker pace of life every once in a while. The truth was that he missed seeing green everywhere. The greens and browns of the grass and trees in fields felt so vibrant against the various shades of grey in the cities, even the bright neon lights and impressive modern buildings didn’t look special to Chris. He loved the countryside so much that one day he decided to open his own business selling products for country life.
The stall was just something he ran on the weekend, mainly to give him something to do now that he was too old to keep up with his former teammates playing football and rugby, something more sedate was what he needed now. It wasn’t all going to be easy though, as Chris was soon to find out. The stall sold all the expected items like fleeces, torches, tents and so on. The customers varied from people who wanted to just visit the woods for a weekend camping to people who lived the lifestyle and needed items to make day to day life easier. One sunny day a customer came to try out some wellington boots and he was a tad more fashion conscious than the average customer, trying out various pairs in the search of the right ones to look good in. The customer eventually picked his boots and went to pay for them, but he hadn’t put all the boots back in their original places. Immediately after paying, another customer was in the queue to pay for another product.
As this customer paid for their item another person was walking in front of the stall and tripped over one of the stray pairs of wellies. Chris immediately looked up and before he could react the male passer-by was tumbling over. The man hadn’t been looking where he was going and wasn’t able to put his hands up in time to break the fall, his head hitting the concrete floor with a hard and sickening thud. As Chris and the other customer went to help the man they saw he was bleeding from his scalp. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but it being a head injury was enough set alarm bells ringing in Chris’ mind. Chris offered the man a chair to sit on and he seemed in a mild state of shock. Chris quickly called the Market Manager over to take note of the incident. Although the man insisted he was fine, Chris wanted to make note of the incident and a brief statement from the other customer who had witnessed the fall.
Together, they all made their comments for the incident log and an ambulance was called due to the nature of the injury. The man was taken to hospital but not before he had admitted that he wasn’t looking where he was going. That night, Chris dutifully told his insurers about the incident, just in case a claim should arise.
The incident was noted by them and they told him to keep them up to date should anything develop. Chris quickly became far more vigilant in tidying anything from the floor around his stall and the following week was glad to see the man who had taken the fall was back at the market and seemed ok. The man said he was fine and had no intention of making a claim, even seeing the bright side of the incident enough to make light of it. Chris was hugely relieved knowing that this man wasn’t litigious at all and that even if he was, Chris’ public liability was there to protect him. He dreaded to think what might have been had he not had the appropriate cover or if the injury had been worse.