Workplace injury afflicts 79 youth sprayed with a fungicide
On behalf of Jeffrey Frederick of Frederick & Hagle posted in Workers’ Compensation on Friday, August 2, 2013.
There are so many different ways that a worker can be injured that it kind of boggles the mind when you think about it. In Illinois, getting sprayed with a fungicide as you work in a cornfield is a particularly unsavory workplace injury. But it happened to 79 teenagers recently while they were cutting the pollinating tassels off corn plants in an Illinois cornfield.
As they worked, the chemical fumes drifted onto them from a crop-duster. They were sent to the Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana. The hospital said in a news release it treated 79 teens and would be sending them home. OSHA is investigating the incident that happened outside Pesotum, which is 15 miles south of Champaign.
This is a clear case of a workplace injury for which the teens would be entitled to collect workers’ compensation benefits. Any injuries suffered while performing one’s work duties are covered by workers’ compensation regardless of who is at fault in causing the accident and injury. Workers’ compensation benefits usually include all medical expenses, including therapy and other rehabilitative services deemed medically necessary. Workers’ compensation benefits also include lost wages payments. These are based on a percentage of the worker’s average weekly wage computation.
In Illinois, the worker injured in a workplace injury usually receives these payments bi-weekly as long as he or she is considered by treating physicians to be disabled and unable to work due to the accident. Although the teens were being sent home from the hospital, some or all of them could be temporarily disabled and unable to work until ultimately released by their doctors. At any time that a workers’ c5ompensation insurance company does not agree with your doctor and orders you back to work prematurely, it will be time to obtain the services of an experienced workers’ compensation attorney.
Source: dailyjournal.com, “79 Illinois teens were sprayed with farm fungicide, OSHA investigating,” July 25, 2013
