On November 2, 2014, a Minnesota patient detached a metal bar from his hospital bed and used it to attack four nurses; one nurse suffered a collapsed lung, another broke her wrist, and the others had cuts and bruises . . . as well as bad memories of the night.…
I was appalled to read an August 12 AP news report about asbestos production in India being hailed as a form of social welfare, a way to save lives and elevate the living standards of some of the world’s poorest people. India is already the world’s biggest importer of asbestos,…
“Health care reform” . . . Those three words have become a part of our national language, especially in the last few years. It’s an ongoing process. Did you know it has been ongoing for almost 200 years? Whose name do you associate with health care reform? Hillary Clinton? Barack…
Sometimes it takes a mental picture to get across an important message. Try this one: Visualize the end zone of USC’s or Clemson’s football stadium; now imagine that 3 out of every 4 seats are occupied by individuals who have a permanent disability due to a traumatic brain injury. That’s…
British poet Ralph Hodgson wrote, “Time, you old gypsy man, will you not stay? Put up your caravan just for one day.” Time does have a way of getting away from us. And in the spring, most of us dread the day when we will “lose an hour.” I’m talking…
Federal safety officials are warning employers to take steps this winter to protect workers from serious – and sometimes fatal – exposure to carbon monoxide. The move follows a recent workplace injury incident in a New England warehouse where a worker was found unconscious and having a seizure from carbon…
Failure to make workplaces fully safe and accessible may be behind recent findings that workers with disabilities are injured almost twice as often as other workers. A study that appears in the September issue of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that improvements to workplace conditions could help disabled…
People who work evening or night shifts, rotating shifts or irregular shifts may suffer from a serious but invisible workplace danger: an increased risk of heart attack or stroke. Researchers who examined the results of more than 30 different studies found that shift workers are more likely than others to…
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway employee was awarded $2 million by a Yellowstone County, Montana jury for an injury he suffered in 2001. The employee tripped over a radio handset cord in the locomotive and fell down three steps. The man suffered back injuries that required surgery and has…
A Marshall County, West Virginia jury found American Electric Power (AEP) negligent in a 2007 explosion, and they must pay close to $7 million to the family of a man that died in the explosion. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a Tyler County, WV man who was a…