The instinct is to get them up immediately. That instinct causes second injuries, to them and to whoever is helping.
This is not medical advice and we are not clinicians. It is the sequence we have seen work, and the reason we are writing it is that most of the equipment we install goes in after a fall rather than before one.
Before anything else
Stay calm and stay down at their level. Somebody on the floor who is frightened will try to get up fast, which is when the second injury happens.
Ask before you touch. Are you hurt? Where? Can you move your legs? Can you move your arms?
Look for the reasons not to move them. Any suspicion of a head injury, a broken bone, severe pain, confusion, chest pain, bleeding that will not stop, or the person taking a blood thinner. Any of those and you call for help rather than lifting.
If they can get up
The safest route is one they do largely themselves, in stages, with furniture rather than with you.
- Roll onto their side, then push up to sitting.
- Rest there. Longer than feels necessary.
- Crawl or shuffle to a sturdy chair.
- Kneel facing the chair, hands on the seat.
- Bring the stronger leg up to a half kneel.
- Push up and turn to sit, using the chair rather than your arms.
Your job is steadying and encouragement, not lifting. A gait belt makes this meaningfully safer for both of you, and it costs very little.
If they cannot
Call for help. Do not lift somebody off the floor alone, and do not let several untrained people improvise it. Keep them warm, put a cushion under their head, and stay with them.
Ambulance services attend lifts of this kind routinely. Nobody will think you have wasted their time.
Afterward, even if nothing was broken
Tell the doctor. The CDC notes fewer than half of older adults who fall mention it, and a first fall is the strongest predictor of a second. A medication review and a balance assessment come out of that conversation.
Change something in the house. A fall that changes nothing repeats, and the second one is usually worse.
What to change, in order
Lighting on the route they fell on. The rug, removed or taped. A grab bar where the fall happened, which is most often beside the toilet or at the shower entry. Then the stairs.
Our room-by-room checklist walks the house properly, and our grab bar guide covers why the fixing behind a bar matters more than the bar.
Planning for next time
If somebody is falling, they will likely fall again. A phone kept on them rather than across the room, a personal alarm, and a daily check-in are all worth more than most equipment.
The CDC’s STEADI patient resources are written for exactly this and take ten minutes to read.
Gait belts, bed rails, grab bars, non-slip matting and night lighting ship free from our online shop.
If they have been down a while
Someone who has been on the floor for an extended period needs medical attention regardless of how they seem. Prolonged pressure, dehydration and cold are all real consequences of a long lie, and the person may well minimize it.
That is a call for help rather than a lift, even if they are talking normally and want to get up.
What to say afterward
Most people are embarrassed rather than hurt, and embarrassment is why falls go unreported. Treat it as information about the house rather than about them: this step is badly lit, that rug has always been a nuisance.
Our conversation guide covers that conversation properly, because getting equipment in before a second fall is largely a matter of how the first one is discussed.
Keep a note
Date, where, what they were doing, what happened in the hours before. Patterns emerge that nobody spots otherwise: always at night, always after standing up quickly, always the same doorway.
That note is worth a great deal at a medical appointment, and a medication review frequently follows from it. Gait belts, bed rails, night lighting and personal alarms ship free from our online shop.
Practice the recovery before it happens
This sounds odd and it works. With somebody who is steady enough, walk through the stages on a carpeted floor with a sturdy chair: roll to the side, sit, rest, crawl to the chair, half kneel, push up.
Somebody who has done it once calmly is far less likely to panic and try to stand straight up from the floor, which is where second injuries come from. An occupational therapist will teach it properly.
Our room-by-room checklist covers what to change in the house, and gait belts and bed rails ship free from our online shop.