The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) came up with construction’s “Fatal Four,” which included falls, electrocutions, struck by an object (8.1%), and caught in/between (4.3%).
As far as caught in or between fatalities, this category includes workers who were compressed by equipment, caught-in between equipment or objects, and workers that were caught, struck, or crushed by collapsing materials, equipment, or a structure.
While caught-in or between machine-related injuries only represent 4.3% of the fatalities in the Fatal Four, they are some of the most graphic and brutal. These fatalities are the effect of being crushed to death, power machinery fails, and heavy equipment disasters.
A caught in/between accident is where the worker’s body is squeezed, crushed, pinned, or caught between two more objects. These include trench collapses, heavy equipment rollovers, factory workers being crushed to death, body parts mangled in machinery, cave-ins, hands and arms being sucked into unguarded machinery, and workers getting trapped between heavy machinery and a fixed object.
In many cases where a worker survives a machinery-related accident, he or she is left with mangled body parts, which are either amputated during the accident, or later by a surgeon at the hospital – the effects of such accidents can be permanent.
At Katz, Leidman, Freund & Herman, we’ve obtained large settlements for many clients who’ve been injured in a “Fatal Four” accident, especially falls, accidents involving being struck by an object, and caught in/between accidents.
A caught in or between accident may involve:
- Crushed bones
- Amputation injuries
- The need for amputation surgery
- Lung injuries
- Injuries to internal organs
- Spinal cord injuries
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Paralysis
- Permanent nerve damage
- Permanent impairment of injured body part
- And many more lifelong injuries
If you have been injured in a heavy machinery-related accident on a construction site, in a warehouse, or in any other work environment, we urge you to contact a New York workers’ compensation attorney from our firm.
We offer free initial consultations to all prospective clients, so give us a call today!
