How Do You Report a Dog Bite Incident in Georgia?
No matter how safe you try to be while out and about in Georgia, you can still come across dangerous situations that you’re not expecting. One of those situations can be a dog off leash or in a space where they’re not supposed to be. If they’re aggressive, then that could lead to you suffering from a bite and getting injured.
When you didn’t provoke the dog and were injured because of their owner’s negligence, you’ll likely want to report the incident so that you can get justice for what happened to you. Let’s take a look at how you report a dog bite in Georgia so that you know the process and file correctly right away.
Reporting a Dog Bite in Georgia
Depending on the situation, you might be hesitant to file a report of your dog bite, which is understandable. If the dog is owned by someone you know or one of your friends, then you might not want to report the incident, but you still might be conflicted because you want to recover compensation for your injuries. If you don’t know the owner, you might be less conflicted, but still unsure because you want to see the good in an animal.
However, the owner needs to be held accountable for their negligence when their dog attacks and injures a person. Filing a report also ensures that there is a record of the dog’s violence, which can help protect other people from being injured by that dog in the future.
These reasons and so that you can get help quickly are why you should immediately file a report. When you quickly make the report for the incident, you can also ensure that you have ample documentation for filing a personal injury claim later.
If you were severely injured, the first thing you should do after a dog bite is call emergency services. That way, you can get immediate medical attention and have law enforcement on the scene. If you weren’t severely injured, you should still seek medical treatment, but you might call your county’s Animal Control department first.
As well as calling an Animal Control officer, you could also call the local police to have them on the scene and make a report. Once you’ve called the proper authorities and gotten evaluated for injuries by healthcare professionals, you should consider hiring a dog bite lawyer to guide you through the process and help you if you decide to file a legal claim.
Georgia Dog Bite Laws
After suffering from a dog bite, you might be wondering how this broke the law and what legal action can be taken based on what happened. Knowing Georgia’s dog bite laws can help you better understand the severity of what happened and how your rights were infringed upon.
In general, you should know that dogs in Georgia are not presumed to be dangerous. When you’ve been bitten by a dog, you’ll have to prove that they were dangerous and that their owner was negligent and that’s why you were injured. There are three elements that you’ll have to prove in order to hold the owner liable for what their dog did to you:
- The dog is dangerous.
- The dog’s owner was negligent with their care.
- You didn’t do anything to provoke the dog.
There are a few ways that the owner could be negligent with their dog’s care. One way could be that they mishandle their dog, which means they can’t control them in stressful situations where they could be dangerous. Another way is they let the dog be on the loose, not on a leash or in a fenced in area.
As long as you didn’t do anything to provoke the dog to attack you, then you should be able to prove all of these elements. The easiest way to do that is with the help of a lawyer.
Bey & Associates Will Help You
After being attacked by a dog, you might be feeling especially vulnerable. Your injuries are affecting your life and your finances, but you shouldn’t have to go through that alone. When you have an Atlanta dog bite lawyer on your side, you can have peace of mind knowing that they are fighting to get you justice for your injuries and damages.
At Bey & Associates, we are dedicated to our clients and ensure that they feel supported through every step of the legal process. We will help you prove the owner was negligent so that you can get the compensation that you deserve. Contact us today so that we can discuss your claim.