work injury
Last Thursday, I was working at the dock and drove a shard of pallet wood into my thigh. I was walking out of a trailer after cleaning some plastic off of a pallet. It was a crowded area, with the hilo in the bay door, a half-dozen pallets on the forks, and a trash can just outside the door.
As I walked between the hilo and the trash can, a long shard of pine pallet wood, about two feet long and an inch wide at the widest part but coming to a wicked point, stabbed into the middle of my thigh. Bumping into stuff or being poked or grazed is something that happens every day -- it's a messy, hazardous work environment -- and normally I would have simply brushed against the strip of wood and knocked it out of the trash can. But this strip of wood was braced and held by other stuff in the can, and when I hit it, it thrust about an inch and a half into my thigh.
They say that when you suffer a stab wound, you should never take the stabby thing out. But let me tell you -- when I was stabbed, my first unthinking action was pull that thing the hell out of my leg.
I limped off to the bathroom because I was sure that I must be gushing blood all over. In fact, the wound didn't bleed at all, other than two or three drops that my jeans soaked up.
It hurt like a motherfucker.
I decided to see how it would feel in an hour, and continued to work sitting on my hilo. When I finished the trailer and got down to sweep it out, my leg wouldn't bear my weight. So I went off to report the injury to the dock clerk and he sent me up to his boss, who has the title of First Assistant.
The FA brought over his boss and also called Asset Protection. Asset Protection are in charge of things like watching us to make sure we don't steal, investigating property damage (like the time I put the top of my hilo through the roof of a trailer) and also giving first aid to to injured workers. So, Asset Protection came, washed and bandaged the wound (I'd already done this, but hey) and photographed both the injury and the stick. Being taken care of someone with the title of Asset Protection had a nice 18th century feel.
Since I couldn't do more than a kind of painful hop-limp, the very nice woman from Asset Protection gave me a ride to my car and I drove myself to Workhealth, the clinic that Meijer contracts with. They were closed, so I went to the ER.
The ER was really busy. After a couple of hours, I got into an exam room. I had brought the shard of wood in, and the Doc, impressed, took a pic of it. Then I got IV antibiotics, a painkiller, and xrays. The xrays showed that I didn't have any foreign object still embedded.
Mike showed up (I had called him in the bathroom when I first hurt myself and had kept him in the loop along the way), I got discharged and we went back to Meijer to turn in my paperwork.
The time of the injury was about 2:45 pm; I notified my dock clerk at about 3:30 pm and was driven to my car by Asset Protection at about 5 pm. I got to Workhealth at 5:15pm and got to the ER at about 5:30. I got out of the ER at about 10:15pm, and droped off my paperwork back at Meijer at about 10:45pm.
I was required to get myself checked out by Workhealth the next day. The ER doc had said to stay off of it for 2 days. The Workhealth doc cleared my for work, with "limited walking."
So I reported to work. We had a BBQ that day at break-time to kick off our recycling campaign, and I got in just as folks were going on break. My boss gave me the job of cleaning up after the BBQ as "light work." This entailed bringing all the left over food stuff from the conference room and storing it in employee fridges -- about 50 meters round trip. Then I had to wash the dishes and wipe down the tables. It took about 2.5 hours and when I was done, my leg was on fire. I spent the last two hours of the shift in the break room, sitting.
When I woke up the next day, Saturday, I couldn't bear weight on my leg, so I called work and asked them what they wanted me to do. See, if I call in sick, I get a point and an employee can only get 12 points per year, or they are fired. So I assured them that I'd come into work, but that I wouldn't be able to walk. My upper boss said to go ahead and rest it for the day.
The wound itself was unimpressive -- a jagged hole smaller than the tip of my pinky. But there's a nerve that runs down the middle of the thigh, and the injury made it very unhappy.
So I took most of Saturday off-- I pretty much slept the whole day. Most of the day, because I went in and sat with my home care client on both Saturday and Sunday, but the emphasis was on sitting. I was back to work on Monday, limping around, and by Thursday, a week after the injury, I can do my normal work day. It's sore, but I can do it, and the pain doesn't wake me up at night.
But, honestly, it's been a rough week.
As I walked between the hilo and the trash can, a long shard of pine pallet wood, about two feet long and an inch wide at the widest part but coming to a wicked point, stabbed into the middle of my thigh. Bumping into stuff or being poked or grazed is something that happens every day -- it's a messy, hazardous work environment -- and normally I would have simply brushed against the strip of wood and knocked it out of the trash can. But this strip of wood was braced and held by other stuff in the can, and when I hit it, it thrust about an inch and a half into my thigh.
They say that when you suffer a stab wound, you should never take the stabby thing out. But let me tell you -- when I was stabbed, my first unthinking action was pull that thing the hell out of my leg.
I limped off to the bathroom because I was sure that I must be gushing blood all over. In fact, the wound didn't bleed at all, other than two or three drops that my jeans soaked up.
It hurt like a motherfucker.
I decided to see how it would feel in an hour, and continued to work sitting on my hilo. When I finished the trailer and got down to sweep it out, my leg wouldn't bear my weight. So I went off to report the injury to the dock clerk and he sent me up to his boss, who has the title of First Assistant.
The FA brought over his boss and also called Asset Protection. Asset Protection are in charge of things like watching us to make sure we don't steal, investigating property damage (like the time I put the top of my hilo through the roof of a trailer) and also giving first aid to to injured workers. So, Asset Protection came, washed and bandaged the wound (I'd already done this, but hey) and photographed both the injury and the stick. Being taken care of someone with the title of Asset Protection had a nice 18th century feel.
Since I couldn't do more than a kind of painful hop-limp, the very nice woman from Asset Protection gave me a ride to my car and I drove myself to Workhealth, the clinic that Meijer contracts with. They were closed, so I went to the ER.
The ER was really busy. After a couple of hours, I got into an exam room. I had brought the shard of wood in, and the Doc, impressed, took a pic of it. Then I got IV antibiotics, a painkiller, and xrays. The xrays showed that I didn't have any foreign object still embedded.
Mike showed up (I had called him in the bathroom when I first hurt myself and had kept him in the loop along the way), I got discharged and we went back to Meijer to turn in my paperwork.
The time of the injury was about 2:45 pm; I notified my dock clerk at about 3:30 pm and was driven to my car by Asset Protection at about 5 pm. I got to Workhealth at 5:15pm and got to the ER at about 5:30. I got out of the ER at about 10:15pm, and droped off my paperwork back at Meijer at about 10:45pm.
I was required to get myself checked out by Workhealth the next day. The ER doc had said to stay off of it for 2 days. The Workhealth doc cleared my for work, with "limited walking."
So I reported to work. We had a BBQ that day at break-time to kick off our recycling campaign, and I got in just as folks were going on break. My boss gave me the job of cleaning up after the BBQ as "light work." This entailed bringing all the left over food stuff from the conference room and storing it in employee fridges -- about 50 meters round trip. Then I had to wash the dishes and wipe down the tables. It took about 2.5 hours and when I was done, my leg was on fire. I spent the last two hours of the shift in the break room, sitting.
When I woke up the next day, Saturday, I couldn't bear weight on my leg, so I called work and asked them what they wanted me to do. See, if I call in sick, I get a point and an employee can only get 12 points per year, or they are fired. So I assured them that I'd come into work, but that I wouldn't be able to walk. My upper boss said to go ahead and rest it for the day.
The wound itself was unimpressive -- a jagged hole smaller than the tip of my pinky. But there's a nerve that runs down the middle of the thigh, and the injury made it very unhappy.
So I took most of Saturday off-- I pretty much slept the whole day. Most of the day, because I went in and sat with my home care client on both Saturday and Sunday, but the emphasis was on sitting. I was back to work on Monday, limping around, and by Thursday, a week after the injury, I can do my normal work day. It's sore, but I can do it, and the pain doesn't wake me up at night.
But, honestly, it's been a rough week.