You should be able to go to work without fear of getting into a situation where you are injured or worse yet, killed, in the course of performing your work duties. However, in some cases that doesn’t happen and you are left to file a Connecticut workers’ compensation claim around the injuries you suffer at work. Your workplace should be safe and free from incidents that could cause you injury or death and if yours is not you should immediately report that to your supervisor.
Whether your workplace is a place you feel safe at or not, sometimes accidents happen and injuries are a direct result of the work you’re doing. In extreme cases, death can arise from the work you are performing. Incidents that lead to death are not extremely common, but they do happen and when they happen it is important to understand why and how they happened so the mistakes that were made that led to the death of an employee are not repeated.
In workplaces across the country there are really two main reasons why a death may occur according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While these two categories of injuries and death are not the only reason that someone might die at work, they account for the majority of fatalities that occur and therefore they are important to focus on to make sure it is clear how they can be prevented at your job.
The first and overwhelmingly highest reason for a death at a workplace are injuries that are the direct result of transportation. It is reported that 40% of all deaths that occur at a workplace are the result of transportation related causes. You might expect that transportation is due to an auto accident and while there are some incidents that occur that do result in a death due to an auto accident, that isn’t the only cause that is listed under transportation.
Deaths that result from transportation in the workplace can be accounted for by looking at a number of different items in a workplace. For instance, filed under transportation would be a forklift accident in a warehouse. If you or your co-worker was using a forklift and fell out of it, causing injuries that led to death, that would be accounted for in the transportation deaths that are listed here.
In many cases these types of injuries and deaths are preventable. Just like if you were driving on the road in your own personal vehicle you should avoid operating this type of equipment while under the impairment of drugs or alcohol or while being distracted by a phone. You can also help prevent this type of accident by participating in any and all safety training that is offered to you by your employer.
The other type of injuries that often occur at workplaces and account for an additional 17% of all deaths are slips, trips and falls. These types of incidents cover a wide swath of situations, but they can often be deadly. Falls from high above a warehouse floor or a slip on a patch of ice while carrying heavy items could lead to your death or the death of a co-worker. These types of injuries are often preventable as well and they require close attention to details while working on or around equipment or environments that might lead to unsafe working conditions.
Statistics mean nothing if we don’t learn from them. The fact that 57% of all workplace deaths are caused by either transportation issues or slip and fall accidents is a good sign that we need to focus on these areas to improve workplace safety. If we don’t, we will have more and more Connecticut workers’ compensation claims that focus on the safety of workers who are participating in these activities while on the job.
Contact our office if you’ve experienced an injury at work and one of our board certified attorneys will contact you. Depending on the situation, they may work with you on filing your claim and lead you through the entire claims process.
