When it comes to traumatic workplace accidents, amputations are some of the most serious survivable injuries that can occur.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, last year 10,388 severe injuries occurred due to workplace conditions. Of those, 2,644 were amputations.
The industry with the proportionally highest percentage of accidents was the field of manufacturing, which had 57 percent of the total amputations across all industries.
Other dangerous industries with high amputation rates include:
— Oil and gas extraction
— Warehousing
— Construction
— Transportation
New regulations require that companies report serious on-the-job accidents within 24 hours. They were put in place to decrease the frequency of these type of injuries.
In a statement released by OSHA, officials said, “Too often, we would investigate a fatal injury only to find a history of serious injuries at the same workplace. Each of those injuries was a wake-up call for safety that went unheeded.”
Companies have tried to disguise unsafe working conditions and under-report hospitalizations of employees who get hurt while carrying out their duties. The agency hiked their fines up to $7,000 from $1,000 for those that don’t report employee injuries. Most want to comply and may not have been aware of the requirements, but a few scofflaws regularly jeopardize their ‘ safety.
If you were injured while working at your job, you are covered by ‘ benefits. Whether it is something as serious as a traumatic amputation or something more minor, like a muscle strain or a sprain, you can file a claim and receive for lost wages while you are unable to work.
Source: CNN Money, “Workplace accidents led to nearly 3,000 amputations in 2015,” Ahiza Garcia and Patrick Gillespie, accessed Nov. 25, 2016
