Naperville Illinois Restaurant Slip & Fall Accident? Build The Timeline Of What Happened In The Five Minutes Before The Impact
The span from the host stand to a table is only about five minutes long, a span that includes walking across a slippery mat, or walking past a station filled with servers, pitchers of ice water and food trays. You’re on your way to a seat, then you slip and tumble. Here’s how you can reconstruct the five minutes before the fall to see where the water came from, who stepped in it, and who cleaned it up.
Minute Five: Identify the origin of the danger
Start with the spot in the minutes before the fall. An entrance can have wet ground, which is explained well at science.org/content, where rain seeps under a rubber mat that’s been pulled back by a gust of wind. A bathroom can have a puddle where water drips from under a faucet or leaks out of a paper towel held too tightly. A server station can have a spilled cup of ice water from a tipped-over pitcher, or a bus tub that leaked onto the floor from being packed too full. Video may show when the spot became wet, but it might be partially obscured by a decorative plant or a menu holder. If rain is a factor, a weather report, a photo of the entryway, and a wet umbrella can help.
Minute Four: Review the movements of staff in the area
In the four-minute mark, look for any staff members who walked through the area. A server with three full plates may have gone around the water cooler instead of going around the back of the restaurant. A hostess may have walked over the wet tile to grab a menu for a guest. A server may have looked at the floor, spotted the wet spot, and stepped to the side to avoid it. Order tickets can help identify who was around. If an order ticket shows two iced teas ordered at 7:14 PM, video could show a server pouring drinks from a pitcher of water at 7:15 PM. A video recorder clock set ahead of real time can be calibrated against kitchen tickets.
Minute Three: Review the housekeeping schedule
Housekeeping logs can be found throughout the restaurant. There might be a bathroom log with initials and times for every hour. There might be a cleaning log under the cash register, with the top part stained from a coffee spill and the last section left blank. The purpose of looking at these logs is to see if they indicate that there was a housekeeper in the area just prior to someone being hurt in a fall in Naperville Illinois. Examples of these logs include:
- Bathroom inspection sheets with times and initials
- Housekeeping schedules posted outside of the manager’s office
- Log sheets kept on an iPad
- Maintenance logs regarding a broken sink or door jamb
- Work schedules identifying who has housekeeping duties
These logs should be reviewed alongside camera footage to see if they align with what the camera shows. For example, a housekeeper clocked in at 7:10 PM means nothing if no one is shown in the video leaving the bathroom until 7:25 PM.
Minute Two: Review any cleanup efforts
Cleanup efforts can sometimes make things worse. Camera footage could show a server wiping the floor with a dirty towel, kicking an ice cube under a table, or setting up a caution sign that is a few feet away from the hazard. A mop bucket parked outside the kitchen doorway could explain the water streaks on the otherwise dry tiles. Look for anything that changed after a housekeeper cleaned the area. Were patrons still walking in the same area? Was the floor mat repositioned? Was one corner of the mat left folded up? Was a caution cone hidden behind a child’s booster seat, making it difficult for someone coming from the other direction to see it?
Minute One: Identify the diner’s path
Reservation books and table assignments can show why the diner went into the area. The diner may have followed the host to table 12, or may have returned from the bathroom, or may have walked past a server carrying a tray of food. Receipts are timestamped and can be used to see where the diner was a few minutes earlier. Different cameras are used for different areas of the restaurant. One camera could be aimed at the diner’s upper body, obscuring the floor from the view. Another camera could be capturing a reflection of the puddle on the floor under a hanging light fixture, but miss the actual fall altogether. Clothing worn, objects being carried, and tables or chairs being moved can help fill in the gaps.
Save the information from the five minutes leading up to the accident
Video footage is overwritten, logs are thrown out, and mats dry out. Write down the location, time, name of any employees in the area, and any environmental conditions (view website) (i.e. a leaky water pitcher, a crooked caution sign). The information from those five minutes could prove to be the key to solving the case.
