Although your first instinct may be to hop up and proclaim that you are unhurt, resist this urge. Adrenaline and embarrassment are a powerful combination for masking or understating the severity of actual injuries you may have sustained. You may even feel fine immediately after the accident but, later, you could experience significant pain in your neck, back, wrist or any other part of your body that was directly caused by the grocery store injury.

If these injuries ultimately call for a claim, it is likely that the grocery store and it’s insurance carrier will try to use any of the immediate post-accident circumstances to show that no injury was in fact sustained in the grocery store or that, an injury that was sustained was much less severe than the victim claims.

To be safe, seek emergency medical attention. Ask a store employee or, if necessary, a bystander, to call 911.

Do not say you are fine or unhurt if anyone asks. You do not know that yet and a statement of this nature could provide grounds for later denying a slip and fall or premises liability claim.