UK Government figures show around 2,500 British people find themselves in a foreign hospital each year. Unfortunately, holiday accidents do happen, but in many cases, you can make a holiday injury claim for compensation.
Package holiday tour operators have a duty of care to their customers so if you’ve been injured in an accident abroad through no fault of your own, you could be entitled to damages.
The most common types of accidents we see are:
- Slips, trips and falls at hotels and resorts.
- Injuries because of faulty furniture or electrical appliances.
- Accidents due to unmarked and unsafe glass doors.
- Bed bug infestation.
Package holiday accidents and illnesses can result in serious problems, but many are entirely avoidable.
Holiday Accommodation Accidents
Many accidents at hotels and resorts happen as a result of poorly maintained or inadequate facilities.
One of our clients who booked a trip to Bulgaria to celebrate her husband’s 50th birthday described it as a ‘holiday from hell’ after she broke her ankle tripping on a faulty hotel step which left her needing a wheelchair.
When she returned home and went to her local hospital X-rays confirmed she had two broken bones, and she underwent surgery three days later. After contacted Hudgell Solicitors for advice she was eventually awarded £25,000.
“I have never claimed anything in my life, but it was so straightforward,” she said.
In another similar case a mother taking her children to enjoy the evening’s entertainment at their Mexico hotel suffered a serious ankle injury after she fell on a poorly lit footpath leaving her needing a wheelchair and crutches.
Despite the company denying all liability a compensation settlement was eventually agreed for injuries.
Read more: Woman awarded compensation after tripping on hotel’s badly lit pathway
Other cause of accidents that we see at Hudgells are because of wet floors where no adequate warnings signs or inadequate prevention measures have been put in place.
Our client was awarded £9,500 damages by package holiday specialists TUI after breaking her leg when falling in her hotel bathroom which had been left wet and slippery by cleaners.
She was on holiday at the Hotel Florida Spa in Fuengirola, on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain, when she suffered the fall.
She had to spend the final three weeks of her long-awaited break in a plaster cast, only able to stay close to the hotel as her partner had to push her around in a wheelchair.
As part of the accident on holiday claim, Hudgell Solicitors instructed a local architect to visit the hotel and inspect the bathroom tiles, which were found not to meet local standards for slip resistance.
Many travellers are unaware that they have a legal right to compensation.
Under The Package Travel and Linked Arrangements , Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 19922018, when you book a package holiday (accommodation, transport and other services that make up a significant component of the holiday) you have certain enhanced consumer protection, which includes compensation for avoidable injury.
Swimming Pool Accidents
Hotels and resorts have a duty of care to safeguard guests against accidents and injuries in or around their swimming pools and spas. The common failings we see are:
- Lack of safety signage in and around the pool.
- Damaged and missing tiles in and surrounding the pool area.
- Defective or broken drainage systems / grids around the pool.
In a recent case led by our team, damages of £3,500 were secured from holiday operator TUI after our client, a 12-year-old girl who was on holiday with her family at the Odessa Hotel in Cyprus, suffered a deep cut to her big toe on her right foot, caused by a cracked step beside the pool.
In another case in which damages were agreed with TUI, our client suffered a foot injury when getting out of the swimming pool at the Grand Palladium Punta Cana Resort & Spa in the Dominican Republic.
The swimming pool floor was found to have a number of tiles missing or not laid properly and sharp edges were exposed. The injury caused significant bleeding and our client was taken to the doctors by a hotel staff member.
Read more: What you should do if you’ve been injured in a swimming pool holiday accident abroad
Bedbug Bites
Travel operator We Love Holidays Ltd denied any liability over claims by our client that she was repeatedly bitten by bedbugs while she slept in her hotel.
Hudgell Solicitors, which represented her in the holiday injury claim, sought expert medical opinion which concluded her bites were “too voluminous” for the insects to have been brought in on her own luggage.
The 19-year-old woman had to seek hospital treatment after suffering the severe bites which ruined her two-week trip to the resort of Hurghada in Egypt and left her in pain and embarrassed.
A doctor told her he had never seen a case so bad, and she had to be given antihistamine injections and antibiotics to help her recover.
Abbie flew from Manchester to join her grandparents at the Hotel Nubia Aqua Beach Resort.
Hudgell Solicitors alleged the tour operator failed to institute appropriate inspections to assess the hygiene, health and safety standards, that it failed to monitor these standards adequately or at all and exposed the woman to a foreseeable risk of injury; it was also alleged it failed to take reasonable care of her.
She was eventually awarded £2,500, despite the travel operator denying liability throughout.
Faulty and Broken Furniture
Poorly maintained furniture is also another cause of injury leading to a ruined holiday.
In a recent case we alleged a holiday cruise operator breached its contract with our client by failing to institute an adequate system for inspection and maintenance after he was injured when his bed collapsed.
We maintained that if it had, the defect may have been spotted and put right and not exposed our client to a risk of harm.”
Damages of £7,750 were eventually awarded to the cruise ship passenger who was on a surprise 65th birthday which ended with him having to be given painkilling injections twice a day.
Read more: £7,750 awarded to cruise ship passenger after bed collapsed
Glass Door Accidents
In our work supporting people who suffer injuries abroad we have represented many holidaymakers in relation to accidents involving hotel glass doors which have not met the required safety standards or been poorly marked.
Each country will have a standard level of safety that glass doors must comply with and if doors are found not to have met that standard, it may be possible to make a holiday accident claim for compensation.
Equally, if the hotel has not used appropriate safety stickers, making it hard to see the glass at certain times, the hotel could be found to have failed it its duty to protect its visitors from potential injury.
In one case our client, a 74-year-old man, was leaving the Taoro Garden Hotel in Tenerife, to go on an excursion when he collided with a sliding glass door face first.
The doors smashed, leaving him in a great deal of pain and bleeding from his nose, which had been fractured. He suffered black eyes, headaches, neck pain and flashbacks and was left with a scar on his nose.
In this case our legal experts alleged that the hotel was at fault as it had failed to ensure the doors complied with Spanish building regulations and safety standards.
The case settled with a £5,200 damages agreement being reached, without the need for the case to go to court. We were also informed that the new glass doors in the hotel included lots of larger and more visible warning stickers.
Read more: Hotel glass door accident injuries are all too common abroad
If you’ve recognised that you or a member of your family has come to harm as a result of an injury abroad that wasn’t your fault, then you may have the right to seek compensation.
The first step is to get in touch. You can begin by contacting us via our claim form and selecting Holiday Accident.
Read more: Holiday Accident & Injury Abroad Compensation Claims
Why not listen to our Accident and Injury Abroad podcasts. We’re refreshingly down to earth.
Visit “Righting Wrongs” on platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, and Google Podcasts.
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Ya9FXo
iTunes: https://apple.co/43HNl8L
Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3rOKJsv
