Any accident you find yourself encountering can be debilitating and frustrating. Still, it can be especially impactful when you are injured at work and find your employer is not supporting you during your recovery. These types of accidents can make you feel desperate and leave your family struggling to make ends meet. Follow these simple and helpful steps following an accident to assist and speed your recovery.
- Immediately Reporting the Incident
While it seems to be the first step to take, many workplace accidents go unreported. Even if the workplace accident or injury is seen as non-severe, reporting these incidents is incredibly important.
When workers don’t report accidents, there is a lesser chance of seeking compensation or support if the injury ends up being worse than originally believed. Immediately after an incident, the first step in protecting your rights as an employee is to report and document the incident for future review immediately.
- See your Doctor Immediately Following an Accident
While you may think you are not injured too badly, with time, workplace injuries can manifest into serious health conditions that can leave you unable to work and unable to provide for yourself and your family.
By seeing a doctor immediately, you are not only taking care of yourself and getting the treatment you need, but you are also ensuring there is a record in a place that indicates what caused your injury and documents it as a workplace incident. This can help you in the future, should your injury prove debilitating and you need to move forward with legal actions against your employer.
Without this record and proper treatment, you could find yourself struggling with no support as you progress in life.
- Seeking Professional Legal Advice
There are a few courses of action you can take if you feel that you were injured due to a coworker or employer’s negligence. One of the first steps to take is to contact an injury lawyer now before it is too late and you possibly jeopardize your chances to gain sufficient financial support while you are healing and recovering from your injury.
While you may not immediately seek to go after your employer for damages, it is of the utmost importance that you seek professional counsel to inform you of your rights and your employer’s legal responsibilities. Lack of appropriate knowledge can leave you and your family suffering throughout your recovery, so it is important to know all the options available to you, legal, medical, and otherwise.
- Seek Counselling
Many workplace incidents can be not only physically traumatizing but emotionally traumatic as well. You can find that your work experience breeds a level of fear or emotional scarring that can continue through your life, even after your physical injuries are healed.
Workers are often unsure of how to proceed after an accident and will simply finish out the day and go home to tend to their hurts or injuries, but this can often lead to health and legal-related complications in the future. It is important to make sure that you are in peak condition and recover not only from physical injuries but also from emotional and mental injuries.
