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8 Common Workers’ Compensation Injuries
09/14/2017
Workers compensation is a type of insurance that covers employees who are injured on the job. Each state has their own unique set of laws pertaining to workers compensation programs, but it is mandatory that any business with at least 1 full-time employee carry workers compensation insurance. Benefits to injured workers often include medical expenses, death benefits, lost wages, and rehabilitation services.
Regardless of how well an employer educates their employees on best practices for a safer workplace, accidents happen. Here are 8 of the most common injuries suffered in the American workplace and how they occur:
- Overexertion. The most common workplace injury, overexertion is when an employee overexerts themselves to lift, pull, push, or throw something and pulls a muscle or forces a joint to move beyond its typical range of motion. While overexertion injuries are common in factory and construction jobs, they can happen on any job site where physical labor is needed.
- Slip, Trip and Fall. Most often, these injuries occur because there are wet floors around a workspace. These injuries can also be caused by snowy walkways that haven’t been taken care of. Security workers, groundskeepers, and store clerks are often the victims of slip and fall accidents.
- Fall to Lower Level. Construction workers and roofers are most at risk for this type of injury, where one falls from one level to another, typically from a ladder. These falls can happen to anyone at anytime, though, particularly if the workspace has multiple levels.
- Hit By or Against an Object. Anyone is at risk of this injury, which can occur when something is dropped or falls from a shelf. Conversely, workers can trip and fall into a stationary object and suffer injuries as a result.
- Car Accident. These accidents are most common in the trucking, taxi cab, and limo services, where employees are tasked with driving on major roadways.
- Machinery Accidents. Large machinery can cause major damage to employees. These accidents typically have huge medical costs associated with them. To avoid these issues, employers should take every precaution to train their employees about best practices with each machine.
- Repetitive Motion. Employees who are subject to moving in the same ways over and over can suffer injury as a result. Working on an assembly line or using a mouse day-to-day can cause tendinitis, carpal tunnel, or bursitis.
- Violence. Be it a physical altercation or a shooting that results in death, violence in the workplace can be the cause of injury. Of course, this type of work place injury is not common in most industries. The top positions exposed to violence in the workplace are law enforcement officers, nursing aides and orderlies, janitors, and heavy-duty truck drivers.
