Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Most cases of food-borne illness are mild, resolve quickly, and don’t cause long-term
problems. But sometimes, food-borne illness can cause serious injuries, long-term physical
problems, or even death. In this video, I’ll talk about the process of what to do after
you get sick after eating contaminated food. Hi, I’m David Henson. So‚ what should
you do if you think you have been infected with a food-borne pathogen?
First, get medical care. If the diarrhea or vomiting doesn’t stop, you run the risk
of becoming dangerously dehydrated. If your doctor isn’t available, you may need to
go to the hospital emergency department. As always, if it’s an emergency, call 911.
Second, report the incident to health authorities. Call your State Department of Public Health.
You can find contact information for your state on the website www.foodsafety.gov. Reporting
is important so that authorities can investigate the matter and intervene to keep others from
being exposed. Third, document any evidence you have to
support your claim. If you still have the packaging of the contaminated product, place
it in a safe location where it is protected and cannot be altered. If the illness started
after eating at a restaurant, save the receipt to show the date and time of your meal, and
write down everything you ate (even if you just picked off someone else’s plate). If
there are witnesses or others who also became sick, then make a list of their contact information
and any details concerning their symptoms. Contamination cases are typically easiest
to prove when others who were similarly exposed suffered from the same symptoms and injuries
as yours. Finally, if your symptoms are long-lasting
or severe, consider talking with an attorney. These cases are not simple, but as lawyers
who regularly handle food-borne illness cases, we know the process. We can investigate to
prove your injuries, and to find out who is responsible.
Proving your injuries requires medical documentation. That means getting copies of your medical
records and bills, and then talking with your doctors about your illness-related problems.
Our goal is to understand exactly what your injuries are, and to determine whether you
are likely to have any ongoing or future problems related to your food-borne illness.
Generally, you are entitled to recover compensation for: Medical bills caused by the food borne
illness incident; Lost wages; Any out-of-pocket expenses that are related to your injuries;
Physical pain and mental suffering; Permanent disability.
Our job is to pursue all of the elements of damages that the law allows you to recover.
Once we have proof of your injuries, we work to determine who to make a claim against.
Typically, we will evaluate all of the parties who manufactured or handled the product up
until the point that you were exposed to it. This may include the provider of raw materials
of the product, manufacturers, distributors, markets, and retailers of the product. Our
goal is to fairly evaluate at what stage of the process the contamination occurred so
that we make legal claims only against those responsible for your illness.
For additional information, visit our website at www.lawmed.com. If you have questions,
HensonFuerst has answers.