A.T. said:
Tie a hangman's noose around your neck and drop 12".
Or a hook through your nipple!
C'mon, A.T., be reasonable. He was not suspended by his neck or his ear or his eyelid, he was suspended by a safety harness. The distance involved makes the impact roughly equivalent to sitting down too fast into a hard-bottom chair (and substantially less than falling backwards and landing on your butt). And by the way, sitting or standing (both the transitions and the static acts of being in those positions)
are a common causes of back injury. The acts of sitting down and standing back up involve poor posture which puts strain on your back. As can sitting itself.
Adams Scott said:
Well, I have 4 bulging disc and a pinched nerve to prove it is a significant distance. Don't know of anyone that can cause that by jumping up and down.
Then you need to talk to more people, most especially a doctor. Back injuries do not require impacts. My mother got her herniated disc and pinched nerve (and following decades of debilitating problems) by bending down to retrieve a can of soup she dropped on the floor at the supermarket. The reality is that over a lifetime of use, the back gets weak and prone to injured even in
normal use.
But in any case, the speed involved here is so low (about 6 feet per second - a brisk walking speed) that your body can absorb even an instant halt with its own internal deformation.
I'm sorry you hurt your back. Getting old sucks. But I don't see how there can be any blame for anyone else than God here.
That said, our society is so litigious that it doesn't seem to recognize true accidents. So all you likely need to prove is that they didn't follow procedure, not that it was a bad fall that should be expected to cause injury.