Head laceration at work. Never sent to ER?
I fell and cut my head open at work. It was a pretty serious cut. Serious enough to where the ER doc think I will have to have plastic surgery to save from hurting my eye sight down the road. I reported to my supervisor who inturn sent me to the "Company" nurse. She put cream on the cut and then a bandaid. Never once asked to demanded I go to ER (save on companies loss work policy). Went back to work next night and demanded to go to ER. After a huge arguement and the involvement of my union president I was able to go. ER doc said she couldn't believe I wasn't sent there when it happened. Went to work (on light duty) tonight and got a pounding headache half way through night. Asked to go home (called for a ride of course), they initally told me know until I more or less said I'm leaving weahter you like it or not. Would like to know if anyone knows the Workers Comp laws and if they were obligated to send me to Er being it was a head trauma work related accident. Please help
Answers:
Provided you are in the U.S. Work comp mandates that a supervisor fill out an incident report immediately, and you are at that time offered medical care. There is a place on the work comp form to fill out if you denied medical treatment. Ask your supervisor for a copy of the report, Ask to speak to the safety coordinator, or manager of safety. They were obligated to get you medical treatment, and a nurse is not a doctor. You may also file a complaint with the dept. of labor, and the professional registry of nurses. The nurse has no right to deny you a hospital visit. You union rep should be filing a greivance on this. I am a supervisor in a large government funded building, and my labor is all union. I have never heard of something so blatantly wrong, as what happened to you.. You might also want to contact OSHA, for unsafe working conditions.
an accident report should have been filed immediately, and your supervisor knows this.
If you have documentation from a physician that explains the seriousness of the injury, that ace will trump anything that the Company can say. Sure, it's common practice to send any type of a head injury to an ER. I'm a paramedic, and the real problem is not just the laceration, but also the potential for a brain injury underneath that lac. The force required to cause a big laceration could very well have caused a brain injury too. They screwed up, and should be held accountable for it. Don't expect it to be easy, you may have to get an attorney to get their attention, and your union will be a good place to look for help.
Talk to a lawyer. Talk to your union. Do not allow these greedy corporate morons to endanger your health and safety. There are some pretty good legal protections in most states for this kind of thing.
This should have been reported to OSHA IMMEDIATELY. The company is in violation and they will have to pay for any further expenses incurred as a result. I have listed the link to OSHA below. It will have your answers and what to do! The second link is directly to the OSHA reporting requirements of Injuries and Illness reporting.
why would you go home after work and not to the ER yourself if you felt so strongly about this?
this isn't a "Mother may I" kind of thing...
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