The Most Common Workers’ Compensation Injuries

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The Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety is an industry group that studies trends in injury claims, and researches ways to make people safer from avoidable accidents in our society. Recently they released a statistical analysis of the top 10 accidents cited in workers’ compensation claims.

  • Overexertion—essentially an injury caused by pulling a muscle when working outside of your physical abilities: lifting improperly, attempting to move excessively heavy objects, or overextending yourself when trying to reach something.
  • Slip and Falls—caused by negligently maintained facilities, wet floors, or ice, snow, or rain.  As a personal injury claim this sort of injury is also commonly involved in premises liability claims against grocery stores, restaurants, and other places where water or other slippery substances are commonly present.
  • Falls to a lower level—these are most often encountered in construction or warehousing types of jobs, but can occur in stairwells, parking garages, and other facilities common to white collar jobs as well.
  • Bodily reactions—while you would likely think this refers to allergic reactions or environmental irritants, this category actually includes injuries such as when an employee avoids tripping and actually falling, but suffers a sprain or similar injury in the process.
  • Struck by objects—these kinds of claims can occur anywhere, from construction work to products falling off a shelf in a retail environment, to a co-worker accidentally dropping something on another employee.
  • Struck against an object—there are many scenarios in the work environment where an employee can fall into or be forced physically against stationary objects, and while it may seem counterintuitive, this is also a common accident in office environments.
  • Motor vehicle accidents—any sort of car wreck that occurs while traveling to conduct company business, or where transportation is the company business. Commercial drivers, company representatives, and police officers are all at a higher risk for this sort of injury.
  • Machinery accidents—typically occur in occupations such as manufacturing and construction, machinery accidents are less common than some of the other types, but because of their inherent nature can be far more damaging to the employee and costly for the company. The root cause of machinery accidents is usually either improper maintenance of the machines, improper training of the employees operating them, or when companies are working their employees longer hours during busy periods and causing them to have to work when they’re tired and inattentive.
  • Repetitive motion—this includes carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis, and tendonitis; all injuries that are caused by long term repetitive motions. While lower down on the list of workplace injuries now, repetitive motion injuries have been steadily growing more common as larger and larger portions of our workforce go into jobs requiring long term computer use.
  • Workplace violence—Most instances of workplace violence are not caused by disgruntled co-workers. Robbery suspects actually make up more than three times the amount of incidences that co-workers do. This is especially problematic in retail and food service positions, and at businesses that handle a lot of cash transactions, or potentially more dangerous, cash payroll payments such as those that utilize undocumented workers.

Contact an Experienced Greenville Workers’ Compensation Attorney Today

While nobody will argue that some jobs are inherently more dangerous than others, even in a seemingly harmless “desk job” people can get seriously hurt.  If you or a loved one have been hurt while at work in or around Greenville, South Carolina, the Dan Pruitt Injury Law Firm is here to help.  Get an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer in Greenville on your side. You can contact our firm today to schedule your free case consultation.

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