Accidents on Class Field Trips

If you are trying to impress your future in-laws or rushing for a sorority or fraternity in college, you can reliably convince your newfound family that you are interesting by telling stories about when you survived a near miss with disaster. In Florida, the stories about brushes with danger that could only have happened in northern states are the showstoppers. Everyone will be in awe of the time that your car got stuck during your commute home from work when four inches of snow fell in four hours, and you had to push your car through the snow to the side of the road and then walk home. Likewise, if the conversation is taking place outside Florida, and you are the only Floridian present, then everyone will be stunned by your tales of things that only happen in the Sunshine State. The wildlife species that we regularly see walking down the sidewalk in suburban neighborhoods are of the sort that people in most parts of the United States have only seen in zoos or on YouTube. If your story involves an alligator, you are officially the coolest person in the room, even if all the participants in the conversation are from Florida. Unbeknownst to most people outside Florida, not all alligators are huge, and not all alligator bites are fatal. If you have been injured by an alligator on property for which someone else was legally responsible, contact a Fort Lauderdale premises liability lawyer.

Class Trip to Everglades Turns Eventful When Alligator Bites Student

For some students, the draw of choosing a college in South Florida is that you can party on South Beach on the weekends, but for others, the appeal is that class trips in biology class, where the goal is to explore natural ecosystems, take you to the Everglades. In January 2020, a professor took a group of students from an ecological biology class on a class trip to Everglades National Park, where they would go hiking and see some of Florida’s native species and, given the current state of the Everglades, probably some introduced species before.

Some of the students went swimming in a waterway in the Everglades, when an 18-year-old student felt a sudden pain on her leg and saw that an alligator had bitten her. News reports did not indicate how she got away from the gator or how big it was, but park rangers called the Miami-Dade County Police and the National Park Service. First responders observed that the student had two small puncture wounds on her leg, and they offered to take her to the hospital by ambulance. The student refused, but she later drove herself to the hospital to be examined. The university that sponsored the trip might be legally responsible for the student’s injuries.

Set Up a Consultation Today

A personal injury lawyer can help you file a premises liability lawsuit if you got injured in a preventable accident during a class trip.  Contact Boone & Davis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida or call 954-566-9919 to explore your potential recovery options today.

Source:

newsweek.com/alligator-bites-teenager-everglades-swimming-warning-1481651