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Back injuries and injury compensation

It’s common for employees who have been hurt or fallen ill as a result of a work-related incident to make workers’ compensation or personal disability claims. The compensation you may receive from such claims could be a lifesaver if you’re unable to work because of your injury or disease.

According to a recent study conducted by Todd Fowler, an emergency department physician at Southwest Memorial Hospital, back strain is one of the most frequent work-related injuries that he and his colleague see in the emergency room.

Dr Fowler told Cortez Journey that back strain is more often than not caused by “someone doing something they shouldn’t be doing”, such as lifting an object that is much too heavy for them or attempting to carry a load “without good form”.

Though he added that most back strain that occurs in the workplace is not serious and can be managed effectively with “over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication”, sometimes back injuries can have more serious consequences.

WorkCover New South Wales reveals that back injuries account for more than 30 per cent of all work-related incidents across the state and cost businesses around $270 million each and every year.

What can you do to avoid back injuries at work?

The best course of action you can take to save yourself from suffering from this all-too-common problem is arranging and implementing a risk management strategy. This will identify, assess and eliminate or control the hazards in your workplace that could lead to back injuries.

Look at past work-related injury reports, speak to your co-workers and observe what tasks are being performed in your working environment that could be putting staff at risk of getting back injuries. Then, assess how great a risk each of these hazards poses – this will help you determine how to eliminate or control them, and how urgently such control measures need to be taken.

Finally, do whatever you can to remove the risk or back injury or, if this is not possible, at least reduce it. This might involve modifying the object or objects you are handling, changing the layout of your workplace so that, for example, heavy objects are located at waist level, and undertaking the proper training to lift objects safely.

In the end, though, accidents can and do happen. If you have received a debilitating work-related injury, you might be able to receive injury compensation. Get in touch with the compensation lawyers at Gerard Malouf and Partners today and find out if you’re eligible.

About Us
Gerard Malouf & Partners have provided friendly, experienced legal advice to communities across Australia for over 35 years. Our Personal Injury Lawyers have taken on ten’s of thousands of cases and we are proud to have won billions of dollars for our clients.
Lawyers
Meet the diverse and dynamic team of compensation lawyers and supporting staff that have made this all happen below. Our multi-lingual team can discuss your claims in Arabic, Assyrian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, Croatian, Armenian, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi or Malayalam.
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Meet the diverse and dynamic team of compensation lawyers and supporting staff that have made this all happen below. Our multi-lingual team can discuss your claims in Arabic, Assyrian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, Serbian, Croatian, Armenian, Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi or Malayalam.

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