Top three most common workplace injuries

When you walk or drive around Charlotte, you see a wide and varied business community ranging from convenience stores to high-end restaurants, from manufacturing facilities to grocers, shoe stores, offices and many more. Each business is staffed, and each of those employees is, to one degree or another, at risk of being injured on the job.

A recent news article takes a look at the most common workplace injuries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that more than a million American workers suffer injuries and work-related illnesses annually that result in time off. When you crunch the numbers, there is a workplace injury or illness for one out of every 100 full-time employees every year.

The median number of days off as a result of injury or illness is nine. Most on-the-job injuries are triggered by ordinary events: 60 percent of all 2016 workplace injuries were because of slips, trips, falls or overexertion.

Unsurprisingly then, the most common type of work injuries are sprains, strains and tears. There are 36.3 of these per 10,000 full-time employees, which works out to slightly more than 400,000 total across the nation annually.

Median days from work due to a sprain, strain or tear: 10. The most common event that causes this type of injury is overexertion.

According to the article, the second most common injury is the vague “unspecified” injury (usually swelling and soreness). Though doctors cannot pin down what exactly is wrong with the patients, the pain and discomfort are real, affecting 20.3 per 10,000 full-time workers annually.

Contusions round out the top three types of work-related injuries, with 97,960 per year resulting in needed time off for recuperation and treatment.

If you’ve applied for North Carolina workers’ compensation benefits and been turned down, contact an attorney who knows how to fight successfully for your needed, earned benefits.