The Best Workers’ Compensation Attorney in Santa Ana, CA Understands The Risks At The Workplace

Depending on the occupation, the workplace can be full of hazards and safety risks that could lead to serious injury and even death. Injured workers should consider hiring a workers’ compensation attorney in Santa Ana, CA that understands the risks of injury in various workplaces.

Types of Workplace Injuries

Workplace hazards can include exposure to harmful substances, such as electricity, radiation, loud noise, extreme temperatures, fluctuations in air and water pressure, toxins, and infectious diseases. Exposure to traumatic or stressful events is also considered a workplace hazard.

Other categories of workplace injuries covered by workers comp include:

• Overexertion and bodily reaction.
  • Non-impact injuries caused by excessive physical effort, such as lifting, pushing, holding, carrying, or throwing.
  • Repetitive motion from minor tasks creating stress or strain on part of the body, typically without strenuous effort.

• Slips, trips and falls
• Contact with objects and equipment, such as:
  • Moving object striking a worker
  • Worker coming into contact with an object or equipment by bumping into, stepping on, kicking, or being pushed or thrown onto an object
  • Worker’s body being squeezed, pinched, compressed, or crushed by equipment, between shifting objects, between stationary objects, or by a wire or rope
  • Worker is struck, caught, or crushed in a collapsing structure, equipment, or material
  • Worker is injured by friction or pressure between them and the source of injury
  • Worker is injured by vibration

Workplace Injury Statistics

The top three workplace injuries account for 75% of the injuries in the US.

Exposure to harmful substances or environments:

• 36.1% of all injuries
• 424,360 annual injuries
• Injury rate: 43.5 per 10,000 full-time workers
• Top industry: health care and social assistance
• Jumped to #1 spot in 2020 due to COVID-19
• Average work days lost: 13

Overexertion and bodily reaction:

• 21.7% of all injuries
• 255,490 annual injuries
• Injury rate: 26.2 per 10,000 full-time workers
• Primary age group: 45-64
• Top industry: transportation and warehousing
• Average work days lost: 14

Falls, slips, and trips:

• 18% of all injuries
• 211,640 annual injuries
• Injury rate: 21.7 per 10,000 full-time workers
• Primary age group: 55+
• Top industry: transportation and warehousing and agriculture
• Average work days lost: 14

Other workplace injuries:

• Contact with objects and equipment: 196,140 injuries
• Transportation incidents: 41,010
• Violence and other injuries by persons or animals: 39,310
• Nonclassifiable: 6,620
• Fire and explosions: 1,770

Often, injured workers contact an Orange County workers compensation attorney about a specific injury at work, and have no idea that they may have additional rights to benefits. A typical example is a worker who works as a trucker who suffers a back injury while unloading a trailer but also has been battling asthma for years. By having the knowledge of what types of risks and hazards truck drivers face, an experienced workers’ compensation attorney will know to ask more questions about asthma – how long was the truck drive exposed to diesel fumes from the truck? Was there good ventilation in the truck? Could the driver smell exhaust fumes from the cars on the roadway? Often, a workers’ health suffers in ways that they are not even aware of given the nature of their work.