Top 5 Mistakes Injured Workers Make After Accidents

https://youtu.be/XOL2bp5XqqU

Imagine suffering an injury at work today. Would you know what to do next? Are you sure you’d handle it correctly?

It’s common for injured workers to inadvertently do things wrong, putting themselves at risk. Here are the top five mistakes to avoid after a workplace injury.

1- Failing to Report Your Injury

One of the most common errors is not telling anyone about your accident. If the injury doesn’t seem serious, you shake it off and forget about it.

This is a big mistake that could be detrimental to your health. At home later, when the adrenaline wears off and the pain kicks in, it could be clear that your injury is much more serious than you first thought.

Many injuries are hard for the average person to detect and require a doctor’s diagnosis. Consider something as simple as banging your head into a piece of equipment at work. Hours later, you develop a splitting headache and start to feel dizzy. You could have a mild traumatic brain injury known as a concussion, which requires a period of rest, darkness, and a gradual return to work activities.

If you hadn’t notified your workplace about the injury the previous day, they might question whether it happened at home or someplace other than work. This puts your workers’ compensation claim in jeopardy. Always notify your supervisor immediately after any workplace injury, even if it’s minor.

2- Not Requesting a Copy of the Accident Report

The next mistake is failing to request a copy of the accident report from your workplace. When you notify your employer about what happened, they’re supposed to make an incident report and give you a copy of it.

Unfortunately, employers sometimes try to avoid dealing with workplace accidents by failing to write reports and ignoring the employees’ concerns. They might attempt to disavow any knowledge of the accident and claim you never reported anything.

Ask for a copy of the accident report and ensure it contains correct information with the date, location, and details of your injury. If your employer is refusing to write a report or disagrees about the details, contact a workers’ compensation lawyer urgently to protect your rights.

3- Not Seeking Immediate Medical Treatment

Make your health a priority and seek immediate medical treatment after your workplace injury. Save all documentation, including your medical bills, diagnostic paperwork, and test results.

Failing to seek fast medical treatment opens the door to a debate about what happened to you and when it took place. If you wait days or weeks to see a doctor, it implies that your injury wasn’t serious and doesn’t match up with your account of what happened.

4- Providing an Incomplete Medical History

An injured person is often so focused on the current injury, they forget to provide a complete medical history. Your doctor needs to have this information so they can pinpoint your new injury to the occurrence at work.

It’s also important to establish whether you have any delayed symptoms. Make sure you mention previous instances of hurting yourself at work by slipping, lifting, or carrying objects.

Bring up any issues involving workplace illness or disease. Identify specific body parts that have been impacted, not just the part of your body that currently hurts the most. Give the doctor a full picture of your injury history so their analysis is as detailed as possible.

5- Accepting a Quick Settlement

Finally, don’t rush to accept a quick settlement for your injury. Accepting an offer brings the negotiations to an end and limits your ability to seek further compensation.

Any settlement offer you receive should receive an attorney’s careful review. If your employer or someone else is pressuring you to sign paperwork, don’t do it until you seek legal assistance.

At Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe, we can help you understand your options and advise you about your rights. Our goal is to help you focus on healing from your workplace injury while ensuring you’re gaining the maximum benefits you’re due under the law.

Connect With an Experienced Workers’ Compensation Attorney

The process of filing a claim for workers’ compensation is challenging, especially when you’re worried about making a mistake. Proving workplace injuries requires the help of an experienced workers’ compensation attorney. For a free consultation, contact Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe, PLLC. After-hours visits are available.

Video Script

Hi, I’m Rob Lunsford with the law office of once for Baskin here to give you five mistakes commonly made by injured workers after a work accident. The first mistake that’s commonly made is an injured worker will fail to report the accident to a supervisor. This is often done because a injured worker believes that the accident wasn’t that severe, that they aren’t that hurt or that there’ll be able to shake it off and, you know, get better quickly.

And, uh, a lot of times this is true, but. It’s, you know, if you go home from work, your adrenaline wears off. You wake up the next morning in a lot of pain. It’s very difficult to convince your employer that a work accident happened the day before. So it’s always best practice anytime an accident happens to report it to your supervisor.

The second mistake that’s commonly made is an injured worker will fail to request a copy of the accident report. This is used in the event that your employer attempts to disavow knowledge of an accident after the fact. The third mistake that’s often made is an injured worker fails to seek immediate medical treatment.

It’s important to seek immediate medical treatment to document the injury with a medical provider. Fourth injured workers sometimes fail to provide a complete inaccurate history to the doctor after the accident. It’s very important to make sure that the doctor knows exactly how the accident happened and to specifically pinpoint the occurrence at work.

So make sure that if you’re hurt lifting an object, make sure that you inform the doctor or the medical provider that you were hurt, lifting a specific object and not simply stating that I was lifting something at work and I might’ve heard myself. It’s also important to list all of your body parts.

If you fall and your neck hurts and your wrist hurts, but your neck hurts more than your wrist, a lot of times an injured worker will only talk about the part of their body that hurts the most. And it’s not always the case that the part that hurts the most initially is the part that’s most injured.

A lot of times your neck pain may go away. But your wrist pain may get worse. So it’s very important to make sure that you list all body parts that are injured in that initial doctor visit. Last and fifth mistake made by an injured worker is, is accepting a quick settlement. Make sure that any settlement offer made to you is reviewed by a competent attorney that handles workers’ compensation claims in the state of your injury.

By Lunsford Baskin & Priebe PLLC | Posted on February 14, 2022 Tags: worker compenstation, workplace injuries, workplace injury tag

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