By: Russell Keener  —  August 22, 2011
 

Some jobs put work­ers at a higher risk of injury than oth­ers.  Obvi­ously, those who work on con­struc­tion sites, man­u­fac­tur­ing plants, ware­houses, or who drive trucks are at an increased risk of injuries due to the nature of their jobs.

How­ever, any type of job involves some risk; you may injure your back reach­ing for an item on a high shelf, slip on a greasy floor in the kitchen area of a restau­rant, fall down a flight of stairs, slip on a piece of paper on the floor at an office build­ing.  Their is lit­er­ally no work­place where there is absolutely no risk of injuries.

The most com­mon work­place injuries include:

Falls — Those who work on con­struc­tion sites, forestry and min­ing indus­tries suf­fer more falls that result in injuries than other indus­tries.  Con­struc­tion work­ers fre­quently work on scaf­fold­ing and lad­ders.  Slip­pery sur­faces can result in a fall.  Those who fall most often expe­ri­ence strains, sprains and tears but can also suf­fer hip frac­tures, head or knee injuries and bro­ken bones.

Lift­ing Injuries -  Nurses, truck dri­vers and those who work in man­u­fac­tur­ing are often required to lift items that are heavy.  Nurses often turn patients or lift them in order to get them out of bed.  Semi-truck dri­vers and dri­vers of smaller deliv­ery trucks like UPS are often required to lift heavy pack­ages.  In most cases, the weight of the load isn’t nec­es­sar­ily the cause of the injury; improper lift­ing tech­niques are often respon­si­ble for back injuries.  How­ever, even if the cause of your injury was due to improper tech­nique or even your mis­take, you are still 100% cov­ered by work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion coverage.

Heavy equip­ment and machin­ery — Heavy equip­ment such as fork­lifts, back­hoes and bull­doz­ers can put work­ers at a high risk of seri­ous or even life-threatening injuries.  Heavy machines can roll over when in awk­ward posi­tions; work­ers may back over other work­ers that are not in their line of vision.  When machines are prop­erly main­tained and safety mea­sures in place, risks are greatly reduced but never elim­i­nated.  Unfor­tu­nately, man­age­ment often fails to enforce safety and pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures that would help pre­vent acci­dents that result in seri­ous or even fatal injuries.

The con­struc­tion indus­try is the most injury prone of all indus­tries in the United States today; work­ers on con­struc­tion sites suf­fer more fatal injuries than work­ers in any other profession.

In makes no dif­fer­ence what indus­try you are work in; when you are injured on the job, even due to your own mis­take,  you are 100% eli­gi­ble for work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion ben­e­fits which include 100% pay­ment of all of your med­ical bills for life with no co-pay and no deductible, a weekly pay­check, pay­ment for your dis­abil­ity, and in some cases reha­bil­i­ta­tion, retrain­ing, home mod­i­fi­ca­tions, pur­chase of hand­i­cap acces­si­ble vehi­cles and more.  If you reside in Atlanta or out­ly­ing areas of Decatur, Roswell, Rome, Colum­bus,  Dal­ton or Mari­etta and would like more infor­ma­tion about the rights of injured work­ers in Geor­gia, con­tact an expe­ri­enced Geor­gia work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion law firm.  The Keener Law Firm offers free, friendly, con­fi­den­tial con­sul­ta­tions over the phone or in per­son.  We have over 20 years of expe­ri­ence with
Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion law.   If you have been injured on the job, you need to know your rights.  Do not expect the insur­ance com­pany to look after you.  The Keener Law Firm can be reached at 770–955-3000; or 1–800-900‑2400.  If you don’t get help at the Keener Law Firm, get help somewhere.