I was fired in July from this company because i had gotten badly burned in a fire while working.
I had started the job a little more than three months before the incident had taken place. My job title was Painter and Yardsman. My job duties were painting anything they had brought me to paint and tidy the yard up.
When painting the products you need to mix paint thinners or mineral spirits with the paint to thin them out to pass more easily through the paint gun. This is a messy process. You get paint and FLAMMABLE thinners all over your pants and shirts.
Well two weeks before I had gotten burned my BOSS/OWNER had asked me to burn broken pallets and other wood on the property in a small steel container. Mind you I am soked in Paint and Paint thinners. I felt uncomfortable about the situation but I did not want to loose my job or my new apartment, so I did what I was told.
Everything went fine for two weeks but on the 26 of June while throwing a small amount of paint thinner into the container over the wood (which my boss told me to do to get the fires started) and a peice of paper I had lit on fire into the container a fireball blew up and caught me on fire, I was literally a human torch. I was taken to a hole in the clinic in Farragut called Doctors Care By a company employee and not a ambulance and treated.
I had 1st 2nd and 3rd degree burns on my face neck and arms, and also have damage to my left eye from the chemical excelerance in the fire. Every doctors visit I had went to they would tell me I would be cleared to go back to work the next week and i never got cleared till after the two eye doctor visits. There is a lot more intailed to my medical visits but because of my lawsuit I cant discuss it.
But the bottom line is that when I finally was cleared to go back to work I was still wearing bandages all over my body an eye patch on my left eye and was returned to lite duty. Well the day i cane back they had said the Owner was not in and he wanted me to come back in on monday (afew days later).
When I returned on monday the owner asked to me to join him in the office along with 2 other supervisors and forced me into signing a termination letter. On the employees 90th day they ar given an employee revue to determine weather they will continue to be employed with the company. Well my my injury happened on the 95th day and I was terminated after I was cleared to go back to work. The termination letter clearly states in it that 1 of the resons of the termination was because of me getting burned in the fire.
This company is not a good company to work for. Just a month earlier another employee was fire for a shard of mettle shooting out of a machine and peircing his eye.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and if anything similar has happened to you remember there is a two year statu of limitation for filing a lawsuit. Dont get the crappy end of the stick for suffering a work related accident.
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