What Actions Must You Take If You Get Injured At Work?

Every employer must take the steps necessary, in order to keep accidents from occurring at his or her business, factory or office. Ideally, the employer will establish a group that works to maintain the appropriate level of safety within the employee’s work-space. Some of the same employees should have received first aid training.

There are other steps that various employers have tried, steps that helped to ensure the employees’ safety. For instance, the workers at one company used to devote a short period of each morning to performance of simple exercises. Those exercises were designed to hold-off development of repetitive motion injuries.

Did those exercises work? Well, according to the opinion of one female worker they did. She had suffered such a repetitive motion injury in the past; it had been corrected by means of surgery. It did not come back while she was doing the daily exercises. She noted signs that it was trying to come back, after she left that particular job. She tries to hold-off a repeat of her problem by exercising her wrists.

Suppose someone does get injured; what steps should be taken then?

The injured worker must report the injury-causing accident to his or her supervisor. The supervisor must make sure that the same accident gets reported to the proper authority figure. Then the supervisor must seek medical attention for the injured worker. The person that examines the injury might state that the examined worker can no longer carry out the tasks that he or she had been doing previously. Upon receiving such news, the employer must arrange for the examined employee to use his or her skills at another location on the same work-site.

The most common job-related injuries

These fall into four categories. Some develop when a worker strains his or her lower back. Some reflect the effects of repetitive motions, as explained above. Some are due to slip and fall incidents. The fourth category takes in all the mental problems that are caused by emotional stress.

That list does not include those injuries that might get suffered by the victim of an accident. If a piece of equipment were to malfunction, the person operating that same piece of equipment might get injured. Workers should be cautioned to remain alert. No sleeping on the job!

Sometimes even an alert worker can develop a medical problem, one that gets aggravated by actions demanded of him or her by a supervisor. That medical problem is not always one that can be found on the list of common job-related injuries. Such an incident can aid creation of a tense situation. The employer’s expected actions need to reflect the diagnosis of the observed problem. If that diagnosis takes time, or seems in doubt, the employer feels unsure how to proceed. The increased demand on the employer’s time becomes an annoyance, although it has not been caused intentionally by the injured worker. However, it is important that the injured worker consults with an Injury Lawyer in Oakville before filing for compensation.