What started as just another workday ended with an injury that changed the course of your life. Catastrophic workplace injuries are sudden, severe, and impactful, but you are not alone in your recovery. An experienced South Carolina workers' compensation lawyer can guide you through your workers' compensation claim and help you recover fair compensation for your life-changing injuries. Here, you can begin getting the answers you need after a severe work injury, and we encourage you to contact us to schedule an initial consultation with an experienced and compassionate South Carolina workers' compensation attorney.
Table of Contents
What Is a Catastrophic Injury?
A catastrophic injury is a severe injury that causes significant disruption to your life for a long time and possibly forever. Some examples of catastrophic work injuries include:
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) are one type of catastrophic injury that can profoundly impact a worker's life. Brain injuries can occur after a range of workplace accidents, including falls, falling equipment, machinery mishaps, or even explosions.
When the brain experiences trauma, it can lead to a cascade of cognitive and physical impairments. TBIs vary in severity, and their effects can be immediate and long-lasting. Each brain injury is unique, and the resulting impairments depend on the part of the brain that was injured and the severity of that injury. Impairments may include changes to:
- Cognitive function, including memory, concentration, and decision-making abilities
- Personality, including mood swings and irritability
- Physical health, including headaches, dizziness, and nausea
- Motor skills, including problems with coordination
- Emotional well-being
In the most severe cases, a brain injury can cause coma or death.
Spinal Cord Injuries
Paralysis can result from a spinal cord injury (SCI), which is one of the most serious injuries you can sustain on the job. Causes of work-related SCIs include any hard impact to the spine, equipment mishaps, motor vehicle accidents, and falling from a scaffold, ladder, or roof.
If such an accident misaligns or breaks your vertebrae, which protect your spinal cord, nerves in the spine can be pinched, compressed, or severed, causing reduced mobility and severe pain. In the worst cases, an SCI can leave a worker completely or partially paralyzed.
A complete SCI leaves you without feeling or mobility below the point at which the spine is damaged. Depending on where the injury is, you could lose sensation and mobility in your legs (paraplegia) or in both your arms and legs (quadriplegia). An incomplete SCI might leave you with some sensation and mobility below the point of spinal damage.
Burn Injuries
Burn injuries typically occur as a result of workplace accidents involving fires, explosions, or exposure to hazardous materials. The consequences can be severe and life-altering when the skin and underlying tissues suffer burns.
The severity of burn injuries can vary widely, depending on factors such as the extent of tissue damage, the location of the burns, and the source of the heat or chemicals. Burn injuries can result in a range of physical and psychological effects, which may include:
Pain and suffering
Burn injuries are often excruciatingly painful, and the recovery process can be long and arduous.
Disfigurement
Severe burns can cause significant scarring and disfigurement, which may impact a worker's self-esteem and quality of life.
Reduced mobility
Burn injuries that affect joints or muscles can lead to reduced mobility and functional impairment.
Emotional distress
The psychological trauma associated with burn injuries can include symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Burn injury treatment often involves extensive medical interventions, including surgeries, skin grafts, and rehabilitation.
Amputations
Losing an arm, leg, hand, foot, finger, or toe will change your life forever. Amputations can occur due to a variety of workplace accidents, including machinery mishaps, equipment malfunctions, or traumatic incidents. The consequences of an amputation extend far beyond the immediate injury, affecting every aspect of a worker's life. Some of the significant effects of amputations include:
- Physical challenges, including difficulties with mobility, balance, and performing everyday tasks
- Prosthetic needs, including prosthetic limbs or devices that may require frequent adjustments and occasional replacements
- Loss of independence because you may require assistance with daily activities you once performed effortlessly
- Psychological issues, including grief, depression, and anxiety
- Career consequences if you are unable to do your job
- Social and emotional challenges, such as changes in social relationships and self-esteem
Crush Injuries or Multiple Complex Fractures
These injuries often occur in industrial settings, construction sites, or other workplaces where heavy machinery, equipment, or materials are used. A crush injury or multiple bone fracture can cause:
- Severe pain
- Soft tissue damage
- Compartment syndrome
- Infection risk
- Amputation risk
- Long-term disability
- Psychological issues
- Loss of income
Your recovery may include multiple surgeries and extensive physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Organ Damage
Any of your vital internal organs, including your heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver, can be injured in a catastrophic work accident. Heavy machinery accidents, falls, direct impacts, and exposure to hazardous materials are all risks for organ damage.
The effects of organ damage can be wide-ranging, impacting physical health and overall well-being. Some of the significant consequences of organ damage include:
- Life-threatening medical conditions
- Impaired organ function that requires medical care, medications, or organ transplant
- Ongoing pain
- Other medical risks like infection or internal bleeding
- Emotional issues such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder
- Loss of quality of life
- Reduced life expectancy
- Financial strain
The specific effects of organ damage can vary depending on the type of injury and the organs affected.
Am I Eligible for Workers' Compensation?
If you work for a South Carolina business or company with at least four employees, your employer is required to carry workers' compensation insurance. The workers' compensation system provides coverage for workers who are injured or become ill due to work-related accidents or conditions.
Because workers' comp is no-fault coverage, you don't have to prove that your employer was negligent or did anything wrong to cause your injury. Even if you were at fault and caused your own injury or illness, you may still file a claim with your employer's insurance company for your medical treatment and up to two-thirds of lost wages due to your work-related accident.
If your claim is approved, you'll start receiving weekly workers comp benefits equal to approximately two-thirds of your wages, and all your medical bills should be paid. The number of weeks for which you'll receive benefits depends on how long it takes you to recover. If you reach the stage of maximum medical improvement (MMI) and your doctor releases you to return to your previous job, your benefits will end. If you cannot return to the job you did before your injury, you might be given job restrictions and receive a disability rating.
What to Do After a Work Accident
If you are injured on the job, you have 90 days to report your injury to your employer, who should report it to the insurance company within ten days.
You have two years to file a workers' comp claim, but you should not wait. Waiting to report your injury or to file a claim could give the employer's insurance company a reason to dispute your claim. The insurer may argue that you would not have waited if your condition had been serious. To prevent this kind of dispute, you should do all of the following immediately after your accident:
- Report your accident and injury to your employer, preferably in writing
- If your employer does not file a workers' comp claim on your behalf or disputes your work-related injury report, file your claim with Form 50, available from the South Carolina Workers' Compensation Commission (SCWCC)
- See the doctor recommended by the insurance company
- Follow that doctor's orders and treatment recommendations carefully
- Consult a workers comp attorney if your employer or the insurance company disputes your claim or does not cooperate
South Carolina Workers' Compensation Benefits for Permanent Disabilities
Injured workers may receive workers' compensation benefits for a permanent total disability or a permanent partial disability.
Permanent Total Disability
If your permanent disability makes it impossible for you ever to return to your job, even on light duty, you're entitled to total permanent disability benefits. You are presumed to be permanently and totally disabled if you have lost the use of (or had amputated, in the case of limbs) any of the following:
- Both eyes
- Both hips
- Both legs
- Both feet
- Both shoulders
- Both arms
- 50% of the use of your back
- Two different body parts
For permanent total disability, you can collect two-thirds of your average weekly wage for up to 500 weeks, which is a little less than ten years. This time limit does not apply, however, if your injury has left you in any of the following conditions:
- Brain-damaged
- Paraplegic (legs paralyzed)
- Quadriplegic (legs and arms paralyzed)
With any of these three conditions, you can receive benefits for life.
Permanent Partial Disability
If your disability is permanent but only partial, the category of the disability determines how long you can receive lost-wage benefits:
- Loss of one eye or vision in one eye: 140 weeks
- Loss of up to 49% of the use of your back: 300 weeks
- Loss of one leg: 195 weeks
- Loss of one arm: 220 weeks
- Loss of one thumb: 65 weeks
- Loss of one big toe: 32 weeks
- Loss of one other toe: 10 weeks
Lost Earning Capacity
Workers' compensation claimants with permanent disabilities may choose to collect benefits according to the medical model outlined above or an economic model, which bases benefits on earnings lost due to permanent work-related injury or illness. If you choose to have your benefits calculated according to the economic model, you should receive either:
- Two-thirds of your pre-injury wages
- Two-thirds of the difference between your pre-injury wages and your current wages
If your injury is catastrophic but not permanent, you may still be eligible for other workers' compensation benefits.
