Here’s an employment-realm adage that likely rings true for most people and wouldn’t be argued: The country’s varied occupational spheres are far from being equal when it comes to work risks.
Put another way: Although work-linked injuries certainly exist for retail and office workers (e.g., slip/fall incidents and repetitive stress ailments), those lack the potential downsides featuring for workers in a select handful of industries.
Like forestry, for example. Or agriculture. Or mining or gas/oil exploration or maritime work.
Or construction, which is spotlighted immediately below. High numbers of workers – both across Nebraska and all other states spanning the country – avidly pursue work in the construction area. It is a work sphere replete with rewarding challenges and opportunities, but also outsized and varied risks.
Indeed, and as is noted by one authoritative legal source on construction accidents and injuries, industry employees “face perilous conditions every day.”
Recurrent and notable injuries in the construction work realm
Construction industry participants need no reminder of the many and varied risks that they and their colleagues frequently confront while engaged in on-the-job endeavors. Potential injury catalysts run a broad gamut of possibilities, which are often cited by industry commentators and safety regulators.
Particularly well known is the Top-10 list of injury dangers reported annually by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Organization. The compendium of work risks cited each year by OSHA prominently underscores that construction workers need to be dutifully protected by their employers and able to secure maximum financial compensation following a debilitating workplace injury.
The following bullet points spotlight some key entries from OSHA’s 2019 Top-10 list. Inclusions reflect commonly issued safety violations to negligent companies:
- Fall protection (perennially the most frequently stressed violation, with nearly 5,700 citations issued during 2019)
- Hazard communication (e.g., lapses in safety relevant to chemicals and toxic agents)
- Scaffolding collapses and adverse ladder outcomes
- Improper safety controls implemented for machines and equipment during maintenance and servicing
- Inadequate respiratory protection
- Insufficient equipment for ensuring face and eye protection
- Lapses surrounding powered tools and vehicles
Injuries commonly suffered by construction workers are varied and sometimes catastrophic. They range broadly from burns, broken bones and crush injuries to head trauma, back/spinal injuries and many other adverse outcomes.
Workers in the construction realm and other industries should note that they are far from powerless in the wake of a work-related injury. A proven and aggressive personal injury legal team can help them pursue workers’ compensation benefits and, in some cases, an additional recovery against negligent third parties via a personal injury lawsuit.