Workplace safety is a serious issue for everyone. Whether you have a desk job in a downtown Tampa office, run a cash register for a store, or maintain crucial utility infrastructure, every workplace has some risk of injury—some more severe than others.
According to data from the National Safety Council (NSC), “every 7 seconds… a worker is injured on the job.”
Part of avoiding these injuries is knowing what the biggest risks are.
With this in mind, here’s the list of the top causes of accidents in the workplace:
Falling is a leading cause of workplace accidents and injuries across all work types. Across all industries, falls ranks at #3 in “workplace injury events resulting in lost work days (25% of injuries)” according to NSC data.
For the construction industry in particular, falls are a severe problem. OSHA notes falls as the leading cause of death in the construction industry, causing “356 out of 899 total deaths in construction in CY 2014 (39.9%).”
On a side note, fall protection in construction topped OSHA’s list of the 10 most frequently violated OSHA standards in fiscal year 2015.
While you can’t prevent 100% of all falls, you can minimize your risks by:
If you notice an unsafe fall hazard at your workplace, notify others and your employer right away. You can check out the OSHA fall protection page for more guidance.
In the NSC’s infographic, overexertion tops the list of workplace injuries by causing 35% of injuries. It’s important to note that the NSC lists two major types of “overexertion” injury—lifting/lowering injury (pulled muscles, etc.) and repetitive motion injury.
According to data from insurancejournal.com, overexertion is the leading contributor to the costs of workplace injuries—accounting for $15.1 billion in direct costs of workplace injuries in 2012.
There are a few ways to avoid overexertion injuries in the workplace, including:
It’s all too easy to overexert yourself at work without even realizing that you’re doing it—until the pain starts hours or even days later. Work with your employer to identify these overexertion hazards and find ways to work around or eliminate them.
Many businesses have large objects and equipment in the work area that could cause serious injury or death if it fell on a worker. This injury type is more common among construction workers than other industries, however.
According to data from OSHA, being “struck by object” and “caught-in/between” objects rank in the construction industry’s “Fatal Four,” accounting for 8.1% and 4.3% of fatalities, respectively.
Even in other industries, collisions with heavy objects or being trapped between two objects is a major cause of injury. According to NSC data, contact with objects and equipment account for “25% of injuries” in the workplace across all industries.
Avoiding this particular injury risk at work can be difficult, as the situations where such injuries may occur vary from one work environment to the next. Some basic precautions you can take to reduce risk include:
If you notice a major collision hazard in the workplace, notify your employer right away, and try to work out a solution to the problem.
If you or a loved one is injured on the job, the first thing to do is to seek medical assistance as soon as possible. Stabilizing the injury and recovery should be your top priorities. To avoid complications, you’ll probably want to use a medical care provider authorized by your employer or the insurance company.
After medical aid has been secured, notify your supervisor at work as soon as you are able to—preferably in writing. This is the first step in ensuring that you can receive workers’ compensation benefits from your employer.
Keeping a verifiable record of when you notified your employer of your injury can be important. This is because employers must notify their insurer within seven days of their learning of the incident. If your employer fails to do so, you may contact the insurer directly.
You’ll want to make sure that you get treatment from a medical service provider authorized by your company’s insurer—all authorized medical bills should be covered by your employer’s insurer. Authorized doctors should also submit the appropriate medical reports to the insurer, but you may want to ask for copies of your reports just in case.
If your workers’ comp claim is denied by your employer or the insurer, be sure to ask them why the claim was denied. If you think that you’ve been unfairly denied compensation for your injury, it may be worthwhile to consult an injury attorney to help you with your workers’ compensation case.