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A Simple Guide To Know Everything You Should Do After Being Injured At Work

It’s never nice to be involved in an accident. It’s more devastating if we’ve been injured because it could affect us in so many ways. It could impact our mental and physical abilities to complete our daily tasks or our ability to work in our position of employment. It can undoubtedly be a stressful time, but our simple guide to help you navigate through this will help make things a bit easier for you.

Seek Medical Assistance

The first thing you must do is ensure you have had a physical examination. You may appear fine and feel fine, but you don’t know what’s going on internally if anything. If something is happening, by the time you realize it could have complicated matters. Therefore, seek medical advice and obtain as much paperwork as possible to provide your legal representative.

Keep to any future appointments, including rehabilitation. Ensure you have records of the medication you’re using and future appointments. The latter, in particular, may make a difference to your compensation, especially if it’s going to affect your ability to work.

Obtain Legal Representation

You want to ensure you have experienced legal representation as soon as possible. Hiring a lawyer that knows about worker’s compensation claims means that they will worry about filing paperwork and meeting deadlines, allowing you to focus on healing. As Gregory Smith Law has mentioned, if your employer denies your claim a lawyer will be able to review the particulars of your case before helping you decide the most appropriate course of action, thereafter. If you don’t have knowledge of worker’s compensation, obtaining legal advice may be the difference between you getting what you’re entitled to receive and nothing.

Report and Record the Injury at Work

Ensure your colleagues know what’s happened at the time of the event, especially if you were working alone when the incident occurred. Chances are you would have needed a colleague’s assistance at that point. Having someone that’s seen your injuries makes it harder for your employer or their insurance company to deny it happened.

Ensure you follow your employer’s procedures regarding workplace accidents. Inform your manager as well as record the incident in your employer’s accident book, which every workplace should have. If your employer is reluctant to allow you to record your accident, for whatever reason, the best you can do is email or write to them. Try to avoid texting.

Having a paper trail is vital. It will prove that you have notified your employer of your accident so they cannot deny having knowledge of it. Furthermore, it shows that you did your best to report it to them as you didn’t have access to their accident book.

Your legal representative will be able to advise you about potential action to take should your employer be reluctant to have your details recorded in their accident book.

Keep a Diary

From the moment you’re home after the accident and are able, start recording in a diary how you’re feeling, the injuries you’ve got, what medical advice you’ve received. Get into the habit of writing a daily entry about how you’re coping and what you’re doing to help yourself.

Include expenses, such as medical and any adaptations to your home you may have needed to make, as well as losses, like loss of earnings. Keep receipts and any paperwork to prove how your accident has affected your finances.

Take photographs and footage of your recovery process. It will all help with your claim as this is evidence that cannot be ignored, especially if it’s supported by medical experts.

If possible, even take photos and footage of where the accident occurred so that nothing can be changed to disprove what happened to cause your injuries. Record everything and as much as possible. If you’re unable to, see if a colleague can do it for you. This type of evidence cannot usually be disputed, even if the scene of where it occurred changes after your accident.

Do Not Admit to Fault

It’s natural to say things without thinking or not wanting to cause trouble when an accident that has resulted in an injury has occurred. After all, all you want to do is get medical treatment as soon as possible and you’re often in a bit of shock and not really in your right frame of mind.

Never admit to anything being your responsibility if you find yourself in this position. Refuse to sign anything that admits your liability. If you do, then this document will be used against you should you seek compensation. It could result in you receiving nothing. Always seek legal advice at your first opportunity. Never feel pressured to do anything that could jeopardize your claim for compensation.

Being injured at work is something we all dread and do our best to avoid by following health and safety procedures. However, accidents will happen so we need to be prepared and know what to do to ensure we do not suffer any more than necessary, like being financially out of pocket. Following our simple guide will help you know what to do to get the ball rolling and start the process of compensation.

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