Legal Management

Employee Seriously Injured at Work_ 5 Steps You Need to Take

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While employee safety is improving all the time, workers can still get injured on the job. And when that happens, it can put your company in jeopardy.

For this reason, it is imperative you know how to respond when accidents happen. In this post, we take a look at some of the steps your firm needs to take to care for the employee and look after itself.

Survey the Scene

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Professional first aid trainers, such as MyCPR NOW, always tell their students to survey the scene in the immediate aftermath of an accident. Colleagues should look around for any hazards.

The reason for this is pretty straightforward: rescuers who injure themselves in the process of helping others only make the situation worse.

If you notice that a colleague is injured, expect the area and try to communicate with them. Ask them what happened and see if there are any obvious ways you could injure yourself.

Care for the Employee

Next, provide care for the employee. If there is evidence of serious injury or the colleague is unconscious, struggling to breathe, or complaining of chest pain, call an ambulance immediately.

Depending on the severity of the problem, you may also need to provide first aid. If the colleague is unconscious, you’ll need to follow CPR protocols, checking breathing and heart rate. If there is an injury, you may require a first aid kit and bandaids. Use first aid skills to stop severe bleeding until trained paramedics arrive.

Collect All the Facts

Once you’ve cared for the affected colleague, the next step is to collect all the facts and try to figure out what happened. For most injuries, there is an underlying cause that could have been avoided.

When it comes to establishing causes, follow the official guidance. Your job as a company is to discover what factors led to the colleague getting seriously injured at work. It is not your role to ascribe blame.

Fill Out All the Paperwork

The paperwork associated with injuries can be quite extensive. However, you should do it as soon as you can while all the details are fresh in your mind, preferably within 24 hours.

Some insurance carriers will want you to report the incident to them over the phone quickly. This way, they can make sure you are covered for whatever happened.

Under regulations, you’ll also need to prepare and maintain records of employee injuries at work. You should inform the relevant regulatory body if there has been an accident, particularly if an employee undergoes hospitalization.

Build Your Return to Work Program

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Employers have a duty to ensure that workers can return to their posts after a serious injury. Therefore, they should have return-to-work programs in place, just in case someone requires rehabilitation.

Unfortunately, the longer workers stay away from work, the harder it can be for them to come back. They lose skills and they stop being as up-to-date with job requirements as they were in the past. Having a proper policy in place can assist workers with disabilities and long-term injuries.

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