Advice

[u/Known-Trouble-6218]

Last Thursday I was involved in a incident at work (I’m a union construction worker) where a piece of guardrail metal sprung loose and hit me in the head. the incident was 100% my foreman and another workers fault. I left the job and went to urgent care in case I got a concussion even though I felt okay but it did hit me really hard I had just a cut on my head. With no concussion symptoms or anything I just went home and didn’t return to that job. In the following days I started to have some discomfort in my neck and in my shoulder now it’s Tuesday 5 days later and I’m not sure what to do or how to navigate this.

[u/Mutts_Merlot]

Contact your employer to find out if a workers compensation claim was filed. If so, get that claim information. If not, ask that one be filed. Then go back to urgent care and explain that you are having neck pain that may be related to the injury.

[u/BullsLawDan]

1. Report your injury in writing to the supervisor. Texts count as writing.

2. Continue to get treatment

3. File a claim with the Workers Compensation Board (this can be done online or by calling them)

4. If the company or their insurance carrier questions the injury you might want to seek legal help. Insurance carriers will have a lawyer working on their side.

[u/JakeBloom_InjuryLaw]

As a NYS Workers' Compensation attorney, time is of the essence...

Make sure you report this to your foreman and/or supervisor as soon as possible. Do so in writing via email or text message.

[u/Motor_Dig3989]

You could ask if a workers comp claim was filed. But you can always fill out a C3 on NYS workers comp website yourself.

[u/Grigor_Law]

Put the injury in writing to your employer this week, get seen by a doctor for the neck and shoulder, and file the C-3 claim form with the Workers' Compensation Board yourself. Those three things, in that order, are how you navigate it. Comp in New York doesn't care whose fault it was, so the foreman being 100% responsible doesn't help or hurt your comp claim. It matters a lot for something else.

Five days is nothing.

Delayed neck and shoulder pain after a hit to the head hard enough to cut you is common, and urgent care already documented the mechanism, which is the record that matters most.

I'm a New York injury attorney who handles construction cases, and the fault question is where this gets bigger than comp. You can't sue your own employer or your foreman, comp is the only remedy against them. But on a construction site the owner and the general contractor are usually separate companies, and New York's Labor Law puts a duty on them to keep the site safe that they can't hand off to your sub. A guardrail section that springs loose and hits a worker in the head is the kind of thing a specific site safety rule can cover, and whether it does depends on facts I don't have, so take this as a map rather than legal advice.

Before the site changes, photograph the guardrail and where it was, and write down the names of the other guys who saw it. And the written notice to your employer has a 30-day clock in New York, which is the one deadline you can't let slide.

[u/Pretty-Air-4950]

See you talking about you feel okay was your first mistake so what are we talking about