Maintenance Worker Fatalities
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1,142 maintenance workers were fatally injured on the job in the United States between 2003 and 2008, an average of 190 a year. Maintenance workers accounted for 3.4 percent of all occupational fatalities of which 31 percent were Hispanic or Latino. Approximately 83 percent of the Latino maintenance workers who died were born outside the United States. CDC numbers show that the rate of on-the-job fatal injuries among maintenance workers has remained high relative to other workers for about 20 years.
Major events leading to maintenance worker fatalities on the job included transportation incidents (31 percent), contact with objects and equipment (25 percent), falls (23 percent) and traumatic acute exposure to harmful substances or environments, such as electrocution or drowning. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends use of culture- and language-appropriate training techniques as part of comprehensive injury and illness prevention programs for maintenance workers.
Compensation for Injured Workers
When workers are killed on the job, their families can seek workers’ compensation death benefits from the individual’s employer. However, such benefits are often woefully inadequate when it comes to fully compensating a family for its primary or sole wage earner. In such cases, it may be possible to file a third-party claim for significant money damages against a party other than an employer whose negligence may have caused or contributed to the incident. Examples of third parties include general contractors, sub-contractors, building owners, manufacturers of defective products, etc.
If you or a loved one has been injured on the job, the experienced New York personal injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Kenneth A. Wilhelm can help you better understand your legal rights and options. With more than 43 years of experience, we work tirelessly to help obtain the best possible compensation for injured victims or those who have lost a loved one due to someone else’s negligence. Our law firm recovered $3,375,576 for a construction worker (an undocumented immigrant) who was injured on the job – one of the highest construction case settlements in New York in 2010.
Please contact us TOLL FREE 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 1-800-WORK-4-YOU (1-800-967-5496). WE CAN EVEN COME TO YOU. There is no attorneys’ fee unless we recover money for you. We can also help with personal injury cases in New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Florida. If you have been seriously injured in any of the 50 U.S. states, please call us and we will try to help you with your case.
Other TOLL FREE phone numbers for us are:
1-800-RADIO-LAW, 1-888-WYPADEK, OR 1-800-LAS-LEYES
Please visit us at: www.WORK4YOULAW.com
Source: The Associated Press
