Chicken Little - the sky is falling!

blw · June 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-07-04 AT 02:03PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I am calming sitting at my desk this morning reading the latest forum postings and the heavy steel cover (we are in an old building) over my light fixture falls down on my head! Looks kind of like old venetian blind slats, but 5 times the width of the steel. Talk about a killer headache!

The Operations Director accross the hall comes in and says don't move-I'll get the first aid kit - you're bleeding.

Took 3 stitches at the emergency clinic and now I have to do comp paperwork on myself.As I'm leaving the clinic, the doctor (nice guy) smiles and says "You might want to consider moving your desk."

What are some of your crazy w/c accidents?

P.S. Worse part is it cut my hair!!! Several clumps came out when I finally got to comb it after the stitches.

ray a · June 2004

Many years ago I was giving a safety class at work and when I turned to write on the flip chart, I pulled a muscle in my back. I was in agony for about a week.

Parabeagle · June 2004

My most bizarre accident occurred just a month after I started work here, three and a half years ago. And the claim still isn't closed.

One of our AAs was attempting to change the water bottle on the water cooler. As she tried to lift out the old (empty) bottle, the neck of the bottle lodged in the receptacle and she began to pull hard on it to remove it. Well, the bottle gave way and struck the AA in the chin, knocking her backward, displacing her jaw and giving her a slight concussion and whiplash.

Three and a half years, one surgery (for TMJ) and months of time loss later, the employee still is unable to return to work. Kid you not.

Leslie · June 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-07-04 AT 02:18PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I had a two for one last nignt - inebriated customer was cut off. Two security officers were escorting him outside when he hauls off and slugs one in the eye. The other is trying to subdue the customer and wrenches his back.

BTW blw, hope your headache goes away!

JudyT929 · June 2004

About a year after I came to work for this company I was sitting at my ugly metal desk with my legs crossed reading a hillarious email. As I was reading, I was rocking my leg back and forth...When I got to the punch line in the email I was laughing so hard I rocked my leg to hard and hit my foot against the corner of the lower desk drawer and wound up cracking a bone in my foot. I had to be carried out of the office and I wasn't laughing anymore. I did get a nice new wooden desk a couple of months later.

System · June 2004

During a Safety Training session, I had an employee who was stung by a bee, had an allergic reaction and we ended up with a recordable!!

Gillian3 · June 2004

Mine goes back some years ago at a client. The back wall of the facility was next to some railroad tracks. A maintenance worker was painting the building after he listened to all the admonitions about safety. He hoisted himself up on a hoist at the back of the building, lowered it a bit so he could paint and the arm of the hoist went right in front of a slow moving freight train. As I recall, he was just banged up a bit but the hoist was a total loss.

System · June 2004

Our craziest WC experience came when I had the bright idea of starting a company volleyball team. O=* During a game, I jumped straight up to block a shot, like I had a thousand times before, but when I landed, my knee blew out. x:'( Workers' comp covered two surgeries.

There's more. Our workers' comp administrator also was on the volleyball team and broke her finger, but I don't think she filed WC. Another employee sprained her finger. And I broke someone else's finger, but she wasn't on our team so it doesn't count. x:o

All of this really happened. And no, we haven't had a volleyball team since then.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

Parabeagle · June 2004

Stay away from volleyball, James. Good idea. Why not try something a little less violent? Form a fencing team! x;-)

System · June 2004

Fencing can't be more dangerous than our volleyball team! :-?

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

HRQ · June 2004

blw - OUCH! I hope you are feeling better now! What was worse: the stitches or the ruined hairdo? x;-)

I don't have any good injury stories to share with you, but here's a good "What The Hell Were You Thinking?" story: a few years ago I observed our chief maintenance engineer standing with one foot on top of a six foot pool fence and the other on a tree branch, operating a chainsaw in one hand, the other hand gripping another tree branch. He was attempting to save landscaping money by pruning trees himself...

rad · June 2004

Amazingly enough, I've never hurt myself at work (see AnneHa's Corny Issue post for my home injuries). But I did once think I was dying. When teaching preschool I was taking the children to the bathroom after lunch when the most intense pain gripped my chest - I couldn't breathe, all I could do was slide down the wall and clutch my chest. Not wanting to scare the children, I calmly told one of the older children to get another teacher. When she came over, I whispered "I'm having a heart attack, call an ambulance - I'm dying!" . She got the school nurse who listened to my heart, took my pulse, etc. She then grabbed my feet and pushed my legs so my knees hit my chest. I let out the mother of all belches - it was gas. x:-8 I could never understand how folks could mistake gas for a heart attack, now I know!

Hunter1 · June 2004

We've been dealing with one for the past two years: One of our police officers fell INTO his squad car's trunk and injured his hip on the trunk latch. MANY treatments, surgery, time off from work, etc, etc. We're still dealing with it.

annie1992 · June 2004

Well, heck, after these mine is nothing. Just before we moved to our new building, we were housed in an very old, very cool building. However, it had been condemned by the State Fire Marshall as a life hazard. One day a maintenance crew was doing something on the second floor right above my office when one of them fell directly through the ceiling into my office below.

Neither of us was hurt, but it was something of a surprise to both of us.

Annie

Sally · June 2004

My story actually starts a couple of years ago. During our holiday production of the Nutcracker ballet, a spokesperson for our corporate sponsor walked out on stage to give opening remarks and went about one step too far--onto the mesh over the orchestra. The gentlemen fell 6 or 7 feet into the orchestra pit. Fortunately, he was not hurt. Unfortunately, his fall was broken by a string bass--which then was broken.
Having learned from that experience the stage crew decided that for future performances when the orchestra is in the pit, glow tape or lights would be run around the edge of the pit to make it more visable. A few weeks ago one of the stagehands was running cable around the pit for those lights--while the stage lights were slightly dimmed for another task. You guessed it--he fell into the pit. And, his fall was broken by a string bass! It was almost "deja vu all over again...."

mdm · June 2004

The craziest one I can think of was about 4 years ago. The president of the company thought it was a great idea to go white water rafting as a company outing. We all thought it would be a great time. It was great until one of the rafts flipped over going through some rapids. 4 people were hurt. 2 with bumps and bruises, 1 (me) with a sprained left knee, and 1 with 2 fractured vertebrae. Thankfully 3 of the claims have been closed. The employee with the fractured vertebrae took a few months out of work. He says his back gives him trouble periodically and his is the only claim that's still open. Needless to say, there were no more adventurous trips for company outings. They just do bbqs.

HRMaiden · June 2004

Ours happened about 3 years ago. We are a Rendering company and have a plant that processes raw animal hides to the point where they can be sent to the tannery to be made into leather. Part of this process involves dumping the hides into a large vat of salt water for curing. In the process of dumping the hides into the raceway (vat), the load became unbalance and the forklift tipped into the raceway pinning the forklift driver between the forklift and the three foot high concrete embankment that formed the edge of the raceway. The paramedics were called and the police responded before the paramedics could get here.

Our Safety Coordinator specifically told the police officer that the raceway was more than 3 feet deep (I think it's 6 or 7 feet deep)and not to step over the embankment. Well, the officer did not heed the advice of our Safety Coordinator and wound up swimming in the raceway. We rescued him without incident and the employee was also rescued with little injury.

A week later the company was served with a lawsuit from the officer claiming that he was never told not to step into the raceway and that he had to have hepatitis injections because he swallowed some of the water. It took a good year to clear this one up.

Superlative · June 2004

We once had an employee who was sitting at her desk when she noticed her shoelace was untied. She leaned over to tie it, but misjudged the distance and knocked herself unconscious by whacking her forehead on the edge of her desk. After some time passed even she could laugh about it!

sonny · June 2004

These are great. Hunter's brings to mind my favorites. Our police officers get a lot of razing as they do seem to have the bulk of our unusual injuries and I don't think there is one of them that can get over a fence without getting hurt. Somehow, one of our officers had their pepper spray cannister malfunction while he was sitting down. It shot off into his. . er. . private areas resulting in. . er. . a lot of pain. Poor guy was soooooo embarassed.

smaces_twin · June 2004

Not WC, but quite unusual. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving- great party night for a college kid home from school. I was the designated driver and had not had a drop to drink. We were leaving for the night and my friend just got a brand new Jeep Cherokee. I opened the driver door right into my head and opened a huge gash in my right on my eyebrow. Here I am one of the best nights of the year with a huge gash on my head. If I went to the e-room I'd be there all night. So I had a great idea. My parent's neighbor was a urologist. So, I knocked on his door and asked if he could stitch me up. He drove me down to his office and did the deed. We went out right after that. I was hoping the bandage over my eye might help me get some sympathy with the young ladies, but I only got muffled snickers when my back was turned. Ah, those were the good old days.....

System · June 2004

This one didn't end up as WC, but it took some work to keep it that way. At a company golf outing (of a previous employer), the President and CEO of the company, who was known to tip a few, proceeded to race his cart over a very steep embankment. As luck would have it, he was able to keep the wheels on the ground. Unfortunately, the cart following him over the bank (they were probably racing) ended up rolling, resulting in a broken arm for the passenger. Of course, the President argued to cover this injury under WC. We had to point out a number of ramifications of doing this to get him to back down.

awilliams · June 2004

I'm a little late to this thread, but here's my bizarre w/c story. I didn't get to witness this, but an attorney I used to work with did. Back in the 80's he had a summer job at a die-cut facility in Milwaukee. There was a machinist there whose job was to slide a piece of metal into a machine and then operate the pedal on the floor. Apparently, he slid his hand in too far and choped off all his fingertips! They bandaged him up, and the safety officer came down to see what happened. The guys said, "I did it just like this..." And he slid the metal in, stomped on the pedal, and sliced his fingers AGAIN!!!

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

Parabeagle · June 2004

Now, there's a guy who could do the collective gene pool a favor by not reproducing!

mgrinnc · June 2004

I work with a lot of worker's comp claimants and I've heard a lot of strange stories over the years. This is my favorite.

I had an EE that was attacked by a goose on her way to the parking lot at the end of the day. She ended up with a fractured wrist and severe PTSD. Out of work at least five years last I heard...

blw · June 2004

What is PTSD?

sonny · June 2004

Post traumatic stress disorder is my guess.

JudyT929 · June 2004

I used to work with a group of individuals all diagnosed with PTSD, however, it was a result of having been in a war or abused as children and for the most part they were working functioning adults with the aid of therapy and sometimes meds. I can't imagine being attacked by a goose keeping someone on WC for 5 years...guess it takes all kinds.

dbutton111 · June 2004

Hope you're ok now blw.

I used to do WC for a base operations contractor for a federal base. We had a mixture of employees including the police and fire departments. Saw a lot of wacky ones.

One was when an employee was on travel, was on 24 hour duty (on call) and was at a bar with several of the other employees also on the trip. She was dancing, nearly nude, on the table when it collapsed. Thankfully she suffered only a small cut - think she was too drunk to hurt herself (which was a whole 'nuther issue).

Then there were my two firefighters, bless their hearts I just don't think they had anything to do most of the time. They were by far the most interesting group - highly paid, worked 10 days a month, and did nothing but sit around the fire house thinking up oddball questions for the HR folks.

They also invented some of the best WC claims.

One was for a sore back - the mattress the company provided for him to sleep on was lumpy.

Then the other one that really sticks out was the one who was sitting in the La-Z-Boy watching cable and got an eyelash in his eye. Because he was physically at work, he just knew it was wc and I had to file it. I mean, come on, he could have gotten an infection and lost his eye (or so he screamed while I tried to hide my smirk as I filled out the wc form).

System · June 2004

If I were to admit to falling off a pair of platform shoes while getting out of my daughter's sports car in the police parking lot within view of the surveyllance cameras, it would be embarrasing. So I won't.

Parabeagle · June 2004

Ah, boy! Here comes Sam with her shoes again! x;-)

Don D · June 2004

I agree parabeagle. Don't they have age warnings on those boxes of shoes? People of a certain demographic should be required to wear sneakers in order to sign up for the group plan.

Chicken Little - the sky is falling!

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