Overview of Accident at Work Personal Injury cases
About 15% of personal injury cases submitted with the Injuries board in Ireland relate to accidents at work. Around 70% of cases submitted to the Injuries board relate to car accident cases.
Although accident at work personal injury claims are not as common as road traffic accident claims, there are still too many of them. Rogers Personal Injury Solicitors Dublin deal with a high volume of these accident at work cases, and we see on a daily basis the wide variety of claims that can arise from injuries in the workplace. The aim of this blog post is to demonstrate the wide range of accident types and to highlight the need for vigilance in the workplace.
Accidents a work on building sites are the most common types of accident at work personal injury claim. Think of a construction worker such as a joiner, plumber, electrician, dry-liner or tiler. These employees are constantly using work equipment such as chainsaws, petrol saws, power tools, compressors and drills. These employees are always lifting heavy items such as concrete blocks, threading machines, scaffolding poles, planks of wood and glass.
As a firm of personal injury solicitors, we are too familiar with the types of injury that can occur on building sites. Loss of limbs are not uncommon, particularly fingers. The loss of a finger can happen so easily. A heavy item can land on a finger, it can get squashed between heavy items or get caught on a saw blade.
Deep cuts and lacerations are common too. Again, saws and blades are a common factor here. Sometimes saws are not fitted with proper protective guards.
A large proportion of workplace accidents occur due to lack of training when it comes to using equipment such as forklift trucks, cutting saws and lifting heavy items. Manual handling training is essential on building sites, but again a lot of the time employees are not adequately trained.
Accidents on farms are the second most common type of accident at work personal injury claims in Ireland. Farms are just as dangerous as building sites. There are maybe less accidents of farms than building sites simply sown to numbers – less people work on farms. Farm accidents typically involve machinery such as tractors and mowers. The most serious cases that we have dealt with as accident at work personal injury solicitor involved live machinery. PTO shafts at the rear of tractors are hazardous. Sometimes tractors are left with the hand break off. Animals can cause real dangers and the risk of certain animals such as bulls need to be assessed and the releveant safety measures introduced.
If you have been involved in an accident at work, then please feel free to contact us. We deal with a lot of workplace accident claims and offer a friendly and customer focused service. We are based in Dublin but we serve clients in all corners of Ireland.