Posted on Tuesday, June 25th, 2019 at 9:20 am
Experienced work injury lawyers fight for workers with acute and chronic pain. Back injuries are a very common type of workplace injury. Back pain affects most every type of worker including nurses, construction workers, retail clerks, firefighters, police officers, anyone who stands for long hours, and anyone who moves any type of heavy object. Motor vehicle accidents can also cause back pain.
Often, back pain is due to a specific accident such as a fall or lifting too heavy an object. Back pain can also be due to an event that makes an existing back problem worse. A few of the events that can cause back pain include:
It should be pointed out that Workers Compensation generally does not pay for repetitive stress injuries and this rule applies to back injuries as well. Unless the injured worker can point to a specific, identifiable event that caused the back pain, or in Virginia, at least a discreet set of work that caused the pain during a very narrowly defined time frame, the back injury will not be deemed compensable.
Chronic pain is generally pain that lasts for more than a few months.
Back pain can be due to many different types of conditions including:
Back pain is often accompanied by muscle pain, nerve damage, and damaged tendons.
When a back pain injury causes you to stop working, be sure to inform your supervisor and arrange to speak with an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer.
The most important thing is to think very hard about the precise moment that the back pain started. What were you doing? What were you lifting? Was it heavy? Unless you can narrow the cause of the pain down to a specific, identifiable event at a specific time, you will likely not be able to recover.
Also, in Virginia, you need to know that normal movements that anyone would do such as bending down, twisting, or kneeling, will not lead to a good, or compensable claim. This is because they do not involve a risk of employment. In other words, the accident could have happened anywhere. The cause must be something that is a specific risk related to work, such as lifting a very heavy object, or person.
Some back pain improves with non-surgical remedies. Other types of back pain ultimately do require surgery. Workers with pain often work a variety of doctors and healthcare professionals including:
Treatment can take weeks, months, or years. Some workers never recover from their back pain.
A few at-home and short-term remedies, according to Spine-Health, include:
Some workers require back pain surgery to relieve their pain. There are different types of surgeries depending on the location and severity of the pain. According to Spine-Health:
“A decompression surgery removes whatever is pressing on a nerve root from the spinal column, which might include a herniated portion of a disc or a bone spur. There are two primary types of decompression for low back pain.
Other possible surgical options for back pain include:
Compensation for Back Injuries: North Carolina vs. Virginia
Insofar as back injuries, North Carolina and Virginia basically agree on what constitutes an “injury by accident” only in the area of back injuries.
Normally, in North Carolina, an injured worker must first show what the Industrial Commission and Courts in North Carolina define as an “accident” that preceded the injury. An “accident” in North Carolina normally must occur through a “slip, trip or fall” in order for an injured worker to recover for any work injury.
Virginia, on the other hand, is more liberal in this one area and only requires that the injured worker show an identifiable accident that occurred at a reasonably definite time and that a “sudden mechanical change” in the body occurred. There need not be any “slip, trip, or fall.” Virginia focuses more on the notion of whether the injury arose from a “risk of employment.”
Yet with respect to back injuries, North Carolina has carved out an exception. For back injuries in North Carolina, the law is much like Virginia, and the injured worker need only show a “specific traumatic incident” that led to the back injury.
Also, as is well known, when it comes to permanent partial impairment ratings, Virginia provides no ratings for the back, or any spinal injury. Yet for reasons that remain a mystery, in North Carolina, the “back” as it is referred to—which is interpreted as including the entire spine—actually has the highest potential impairment rating of any body part, up to 300 weeks. Why? You will have to ask the legislators that came up with those laws.
Attorney Joe Miller has helped thousands of injured workers in Virginia and North Carolina get the compensation they deserve. Compensation includes obtaining the right amount of wage loss compensation and payment for all necessary medical bills. Compensation also means fighting for workers who have long-term health problems and problems that just don’t seem to have a cure. To review your claim now, call attorney Joe Miller at 1-(888) 694-1671 or use my contact form to schedule an appointment.