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Seattle residents will not soon forget the horrifying sight of a crane collapsing onto a busy street in South Lake Union. Since that deadly construction accident killed two workers and two bystanders, experts have suspected that a potential cause of the tragedy was a common, and unsafe, practice that some operators use to save time when disassembling a crane.
Whatever the ultimate conclusion about what caused the deadly accident, however, Seattle residents cannot help but wonder how many of the area’s many other construction sites hide similar, hidden risks for catastrophe.
Crane collapses are just one of many accidents that can happen on construction sites, which are high-risk, dangerous places under even the best of circumstances. That is why the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries oversees and enforces detailed regulations for construction worksite safety.
Despite the work done by state regulators and code enforcement officers, however, unsafe conditions and preventable accidents occur on construction job sites more often than they should in the Seattle area.
Victims of those accidents often workers who sustain severe or fatal injuries through no fault of their own need strong, determined legal representation to ensure they recover every penny of compensation they deserve and to which they are entitled under Washington law.
If a construction accident in the Seattle area has seriously harmed you or a loved one, then you may have legal rights to recover substantial sums of money not just through workers compensation but also from other parties, too.
Contact the skilled construction accident attorneys at Boohoff Law today to learn more.
Contact us today – call (877) 999-9999 or email us. We’re available 24/7!
About Boohoff Law Construction Accident Attorneys
Attorney Tatiana Boohoff is relatively new to the Seattle area, but she is not new to fighting for the rights of injured victims of someone else’s careless or reckless conduct on a job site.
Founded in Florida more than a decade ago, Boohoff Law recently relocated to the Seattle area, bringing an unmatched reputation as the go-to team of advocates for personal injury victims to the Pacific Northwest.
Attorney Boohoff graduated from Boston University School of Law, one of the country’s best law schools. With that background, she had her pick of jobs in the legal world, and chose to devote her career to helping victims of catastrophic accidents and their families.
More than anything, Boohoff Law takes pride in its commitment to standing toe-to-toe with the biggest corporate defendants and insurance companies, ready to do what it takes to recover the fair compensation every one of the firm’s injured clients deserves.
Construction Accidents Pose a Constant Risk to Workers and the Public
Everyone who works in the construction industry knows that putting up a building or laying a road is dangerous work. Construction sites play host to a vast collection of potential risks: high heights, heavy machinery, unsteady structures, massive raw materials, open flames, caustic chemicals, toxic fumes, explosions, buried power lines… the list goes on and on and on.
Employers in the construction industry have well-established obligations to reduce the risks of construction injuries by taking safety precautions and training employees to use equipment. And yet, construction accidents still happen, causing fatalities and serious injuries across Washington State.
Common construction accidents include:
- Falls. Falling from heights is an ever-present concern on construction sites. Workers have no choice but to spend time on roofs, girders, and scaffolding high above the ground. When safety equipment fails or employers fail to provide it, falls happen and cause massive injuries.
- Crushing accidents. Construction projects involve large, heavy materials and equipment. It takes just a moment of inattention or carelessness for a machine to impact a person’s limb or for a pile of material to collapse on top of a worker.
- Electrocution. Workers on construction sites have to contend with the constant danger of accidental contact with live power lines, either overhead or buried. There is also always a danger of faulty wiring within an existing structure. Any contact with a live wire risks death or severe burns.
- Exposure injuries. Constructions sites are home to a wide variety of chemicals, some of them extremely hazardous to human health if workers fail to take proper breathing and skin-protection precautions and/or do not know the dangers associated with a specific substance.
- Collapse/faulty design. Workers on construction jobs rely on the skill of others to ensure the structure they’re building has adequate engineering and design to be safe. In cases in which someone on the design and engineering side fails to do an adequate job, it’s workers who face the greatest risk from a collapse.
These are just some of the accidents that can happen on a construction site, of course. When multiple people doing multiple risky jobs and working for multiple different employers all come together to build a structure, there are many, many points of potential failure and carelessness that can cause a dangerous condition and a severe injury.
No matter how your construction accident unfolded, if you have suffered harm as a result of someone else’s poor decisions or careless conduct, then you likely have rights to compensation.
Common Construction Accident Injuries
Because of the high risks on a construction site, workers regularly face the potential for serious and fatal injuries.
Many of these injuries can render workers permanently disabled, making it impossible for them to return to work.
They include:
- Traumatic brain injuries (TBI). TBIs typically result from blows or jolts to a worker’s head. Hard hats can limit the risk of TBI from falling objects, but they cannot eliminate it, and they also cannot prevent a TBI in a fall from a high height. TBIs can leave victims with permanent cognitive and motor deficits.
- Spinal cord injuries. When a high fall or crushing accident severs the nerves in the spinal column, the result is often permanent paralysis. Spinal cord injury victims often have to re-learn basic life functions, and face a permanently-altered existence.
- Burns. Severe burns on construction sites can happen in a variety of ways. Caustic chemicals can burn unprotected skin. Open flames or electric arcs from welding torches, and high temperature spatter, can burn welders and bystanders. Flammable materials can explode. And burns can happen from accidental contact with live wires. No matter how burns occur, they can cause agonizing, life-threatening injuries that sometimes take years to treat.
- Crushed or amputated limbs. Heavy objects and machinery can sever or crush a limb, causing the victim permanent injury (if the victim survives the trauma of the accident). Workers who sustain these injuries usually cannot ever return to work.
- Long-term health complications. Exposure to toxic or caustic substances can cause serious long-term health impacts, increasing workers’ rissk of deadly diseases, respiratory ailments, and cognitive impairments.
When severe, construction accident injuries can require a lifetime of medical care and treatment.
The best way to figure out how much financial support you or your loved one needs to recover, as much as possible, from a construction accident is to speak with an experienced construction accident attorney.
The Role of Workers’ Compensation in Construction Accidents
Construction accidents can injure anyone on or near a construction site. But the vast majority of victims of construction accidents are construction workers.
In Seattle and across Washington State, workers generally have the protection of mandatory workers’ compensation insurance, which pays for their medical care for injuries suffered on the job, and may also cover certain lost wages and other expenses.
In theory, the workers’ compensation system makes it straightforward for injured workers to find and pay for doctors, and get back to work. In practice, pursuing a workers’ compensation claim can confuse even the most diligent worker, especially when a claim gets denied in part or in-full.
The receipt of workers’ compensation benefits limits the injured employee’s right to seek other compensation from his or her employer. But, it does not necessarily prevent the injured worker from seeking compensation from other parties who may have caused a construction accident.
Speaking with an experienced Washington State construction accident attorney is the best way to determine the role workers’ compensation may play in your case.
Common Damages for Construction Accident Injuries
Subject to workers’ compensation laws, the law of Washington State entitles victims of construction accidents to seek compensation from those who caused their injuries.
Generally speaking, the law there are two broad categories of damages a construction accident victim might recover: economic (or “special”) damages, and non-economic (or “general”) damages.
Economic damages pay a victim and/or victim’s family for the out-of-pocket costs resulting from the construction accident and injury.
Economic damages for construction accident might include:
- Unreimbursed medical bills;
- Chronic or long-term care costs;
- Assistive medical devices, prosthetics, and home modifications;
- Physical therapy;
- Lost wages from time off from work while recovering or helping a loved one recover; and
- Lost income or employment opportunity due to injuries or permanent disabilities.
Non-economic damages pay for the effects of a construction accident that don’t necessarily have a fixed dollars-and-cents value, such as:
- Pain and suffering;
- Damage to personal relationships (a.k.a. loss of consortium/companionship/parent-child relationship); and
- Negative impacts on quality of life.
Unlike some other states, in Washington non-economic damages are capped by law at a maximum of 43 percent of the average annual wage in Washington (an amount set by law) multiplied by the construction accident victim’s life expectancy at the time of the injury (which is a minimum of 15 years). Washington law does not typically allow for punitive (or exemplary) damages.
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