As much as you may take pride in working and being financially independent, a time may come when you must take care of yourself and protect your emotional and physical well-being. Suffering an injury on the job can be a traumatic experience that brings many years of hardship, embarrassment, and frustration with it. It is a natural inclination for you to want to go back to work as soon as possible after being injured and resume your normal life. However, when your work-related injury only compounds the physical change that your body is experiencing, it may be time for you to consider what is in your emotional, physical, and legal best interests.
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The Physical Risks of Re-injuring at Work
You may not realize the risks you run physically when you try to go back to work after being injured. In fact, it is only when you return to work that you may realize that your injury puts you in jeopardy of becoming permanently disabled or even dying from the damage to your body. Suffering an injury to your limbs, back, head, neck, and other high-risk areas of your body can prompt you to re-injure yourself by going back to work and trying to resume your normal duties. Your body may not be able to handle the physical toll your work puts on it. As such, when you go back to work after such an injury, it is likely that you will hurt yourself again and experience even greater frustration, pain and anger.
Financial Aspects of Repeated Injuries
Each time you go back to work and compound your existing injury, your finances pay a heavy toll. You may have short-term disability insurance that helps you cover basic expenses. Nonetheless, even this insurance cannot provide the same financial reassurance that your regular paycheck can. Eventually your short-term benefits will run out, and you must draw on your savings and checking accounts to pay for your necessities. Repeatedly injuring yourself at work can leave you financially strained and needing to find other ways to pay for your groceries, housing, utilities, and other expenses.
Long-Term Health Consequences of Repeated Injuries
When you aggravate existing injuries, your body is prone to a variety of health risks. You could easily develop arthritis, particularly if your existing injury is located in your joints or tendons. You may also develop blood clots that could potentially kill you or make it necessary for doctors to amputate one of your limbs. Your body will not be forgiving if you continue to work and put yourself at risk when you aggravate your existing damage. It can do little to stop problems like arthritis, calcifications, stress fractures, bone spurs, and other problems from developing in response to the strain. As such, you may be in continuous pain and need to rely on painkillers just to function every day. Your health cannot benefit by your re-injuring yourself at work.
Legal Recourse for Injuries
When you need a source of income, yet cannot work, you may be able to recoup your monetary losses by pursuing legal action against your employer, especially if you have been placed back in the same job position as you formerly held with the same physical job requirements that have caused previous injury before. When you are placed back in the same predicament as before, where you can sustain further injury physically, it is time to contact a lawyer.
You can find a local lawyer in the area you live by doing an online search. Input your area and the type of lawyer that would be pertinent to your case. For example, input "New York injury lawyer" to obtain a list of lawyers that could help you. You can also navigate their websites to look for some of your answers to questions you may have, look at former client's reviews, and read about an individual's unique area of law that they practice in. Another way to find a local lawyer would be to inquire among family and friends for a reference.
How an Injury Lawyer can Help
Retaining a personal injury lawyer who is knowledgeable in regards to employment and workers compensation laws will help you get back on the path to personal recovery medically and financially by fighting for your rights for you to receive monetary compensation while you are healing. Also, often times they will refer you to agencies that might be able to help you get back into a new work field where your physical incapability's will not be an issue.
Re-injuring yourself at work can invite long-lasting devastation into your life. Your finances, mental and physical health, and overall lifestyle may suffer as a result. You may be able to protect your best interests by relying on a personal injury lawyer to counsel you.
Lisa Coleman writes to encourage a person who has been injured on a job and who may still suffer from these injures to make careful considerations before attempting to return back to a job that caused the injury, before permanent physical damage is done. The Perecman Firm, P.L.L.C., a New York injury lawyer firm, can counsel a person who has been injured on the job about their rights, and it is equipped to handle all clients' legal needs.