Hospitals, emergency rooms, clinics, and urgent care centers are places where people are already at their most vulnerable. At facilities across the country, they are also places where safety bollards are often and inexcusably missing near entrances, drop-off zones, and pedestrian walkways. That gap between what these properties should have in place and what is actually there creates a serious, preventable risk of vehicle intrusion accidents and injuries that patients, visitors, and staff may never see coming.
What a Safety Bollard Does
A safety bollard is a reinforced post, typically heavy-gauge steel set in a concrete foundation, designed to stop a vehicle before it reaches the people walking nearby. Properly crash-rated and installed bollards are a simple, proven solution that do not obstruct wheelchair access, ambulance routes, or normal foot traffic. Their purpose is straightforward: they put a physical barrier between a moving vehicle and the people who have no way of knowing one is coming.
Why the Risk Is Heightened at Hospitals & Medical Facilities
Even though bollard installation can help raise the safety of most properties, not all unprotected properties carry the same level of danger. Medical facilities create a particular combination of risk factors that makes the absence of bollards especially hazardous.
- The people present are among the most physically vulnerable anywhere: Patients at hospitals and clinics are already injured, ill, or recovering. Many rely on wheelchairs, walkers, or canes and cannot move quickly out of the path of an incoming vehicle. A collision that would cause serious injuries to a healthy adult can be catastrophic or fatal for a patient with health issues.
- Entrances see constant foot traffic around the clock: Many hospitals and medical centers operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Main entrances, emergency room entry points, and patient drop-off areas are in continuous use at all hours, which means more people are in potential harm's way at any given moment.
- Visitors and patients are often distracted or impaired: People arriving at a hospital are frequently anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, or managing an urgent medical situation. Patients may be affected by their own medications, too. These are not people who are alert and positioned to react quickly to an unexpected danger.
- Drivers near medical facilities are frequently in urgent situations: Family members rushing to reach a patient, drivers unfamiliar with a large medical campus, and people transporting someone in pain are all making quick decisions in areas where foot traffic is heaviest. The combination of urgency and inattention on both sides makes unprotected entrances especially dangerous.
When a vehicle enters an unprotected pedestrian area at a medical facility, the consequences are often devastating. Traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, crush injuries, and fractures are among the most common outcomes. In the most serious cases, victims do not survive.
A Nationwide Problem and a Property Owner's Responsibility
The failure to properly install bollards at medical facilities is happening at hospitals, clinics, and urgent care centers across the country, as we examined in more detail in a previous blog post: The Bollard Safety Crisis. Under premises liability law, property owners, including large hospital systems and healthcare networks, are responsible for maintaining reasonably safe conditions for the people on their properties. When a property owner has the means and knowledge to install proper bollard protection and fails to do so, and someone suffers a serious injury as a result, that failure may give rise to a legal claim against not just the driver but also the property owner.
Were You or a Loved One Injured in a Vehicle Intrusion Incident?
If you or a family member was hurt when a vehicle entered a hospital, clinic, another medical property, or any kind of commercial property, you may have a premises liability claim against the property owner. At Howry Breen & Herman, LLP, we handle catastrophic injury cases for clients across Texas on a contingency fee basis, which means you pay nothing unless we win your case. That arrangement makes it simple for you to learn your legal options and keep things highly affordable if you do have the grounds to start a vehicle intrusion or safety bollard injury claim.
Learn more about our legal services and your options. Call (512) 430-4844 today for a free consultation.