After 7 years of faithful employment I was terminated for sustaining an on the job injury that was totally unavoidable. The injury occurred while rolling up the window of a dump truck during a dust devil. The tendon that goes from wrist to thumb snapped.
I reported the incident to three different supervisors immediately. They conveniently could not find an incident report form. I worked the rest of the day. A few hours after i went home i decided that i should have it checked because my thumb would not move on its own. The next morning i went to see my family physician and found that the tendon had broken. I consequently had to have surgery to repair the tendon and several months of physical therapy.
A few days after the initial injury i had to go to a safety review meeting regarding the incident, and it was decided that it was a preventable injury, that i did not follow company policy for reporting the injury and not going to a doctor of their choice. United metro paid for the surgery and paid me compensation while i was under doctors care but i was terminated as of the day of the safety review. This was in no way a preventable accident. I was told in this review that as a 47 year old man that these kinds of things were bound to happen and that they were a liability.
I was faced with being 47 looking for a new job, no benefits and a family of 4 to support. I was told by attorneys that i had a wrongful termination suit but did not have the financial means to proceed. I have since been told that many people in that age category have been terminated due to injury, preventable or not.
0 comments