Common Industrial Accidents and What You Can Do If You Have Suffered an Injury in Lancaster

Nobody ever goes out and applies for a job with the hopes that they will suffer an injury or get sick as a result of something that happened at their workplace. Yet workplace injuries happen thousands of times each and every day in the United States, and a surprising number of them are completely preventable. Whether an accident at work is a result of a rare occurrence or among the most common industrial accidents that are seen, when a worker is injured in the course of doing their job, they are entitled to collect workers’ compensation, a type of no-fault insurance provided by employers so that their workers can receive medical benefits and wage replacement where appropriate.  Though some injuries are minor, simply requiring short-term treatment without the need to miss any work at all, others are catastrophic and result in major disabilities or even death. Workers’ compensation can cover both physical and mental health conditions, but in order to get the benefits, the state of Pennsylvania requires that injured employees adhere to a rigorous process of notifying their employer of their injury, seeking medical attention from the employer’s approved physicians, providing documentation and filling out paperwork, and awaiting approval or denial of their claim. If you have suffered one of the common industrial accidents detailed below, or have sustained an injury at work in some other way, it is important that you seek knowledgeable legal counsel in order to make sure that you have completed the process properly. The attorneys at the Lancaster PA workers’ compensation law firm of Vanasse Law can help.

There are a seemingly limitless number of ways that workplace injuries can occur, but the most common industrial accidents tend to fall into one of the categories below:

• Slipping and falling, whether on a level surface such as a wet or slippery floor or to a lower level such as what happens when climbing up or downstairs or working on a platform or scaffolding
• Overexertion injuries occur when an employee is lifting, pushing, or throwing an object.
• Bodily reaction injuries occur when an employee trips or slips and does not fall, but injures themselves while trying to right themselves.
• Being struck by an object or against an object. Employees are frequently struck by objects that fall from shelves or higher places, though they can also hurt themselves when they run into objects such as walls, doors, desks, and tables or chairs.
• Injuries that occur while driving or being transported during a work trip.
• Compression or pinching injuries frequently occur in factory settings around machinery.
• Repetitive motion injuries, which can occur as a result of poor ergonomics from an office setup, from working on a factory line, running a cash register, or any other motion where muscles are stressed and strained as a result of repeating the same motion or remaining in the same position for an extended period of time.
• Assaults and violent acts from other employees or from outsiders.

If you or someone you love has suffered a workplace injury and needs to talk to a knowledgeable workers’ compensation attorney, call the lawyers at Vanasse Law.

Find out more about Industrial Accidents HERE.