If you work in one of Walmart’s busy warehouse or distribution centers handling large and heavy cartons or pallets, it is possible that you could suffer from a crushed hand injury. This is when a heavy object falls on top of one of your hands, crushing the hand and doing damage to one or more of the bones, muscles or nerves. A crushed hand injury needs immediate surgery and follow up medical treatment. This is not the time to ‘tough it out’ as the pain will only get worse. Medical treatment does cost money and it can be a worry knowing that you need to stay away from work to allow your hand to recover. A workers’ compensation claim can pay the medical bills and compensate for lost earnings. Talk to a workers’ comp. attorney before making a claim. America’s Supercenters Walmart is one of America’s commercial success stories. It all started in Arkansas after the Second World War. Americans were getting wealthier and more mobile. The concept of providing large discounted stores with almost everything an ordinary American family needed proved a success. From the first Walmart in 1962, the company has now grown to nearly 12,000 stores, many of them the instantly recognizable ‘supercenters.’ Walmart employs more people than any other commercial enterprise anywhere in the world with an estimated employee population of over 2.3 million. Funnily enough, despite many other American corporations becoming internationally recognized, Walmart has more or less been content with restricting itself to the U.S. and Canada. How a Crushed Hand Injury Could Affect Your Ability To Work It’s easy to see how a crushed hand injury would be very painful and could mean that it would be impossible to return to work immediately after the injury. Most Walmart employees, especially those who work with handling Walmart products in the warehouse, distribution center or in one of the stores itself, need two working hands to do their normal jobs. If you work in a Walmart office and have had an accident in which your hand was crushed, you may still be able to do limited work if your injured hand was not your most used hand. In these circumstances, it is always best to follow the advice of your physician. Where Workers’ Compensation Comes In It is important to make a claim for workers’ comp. if your hand is crushed while doing your job at Walmart. Compensation will pay any medical bills and will help to pay for the majority of your wages lost because you could not go back to work straight away. These payments are available irrespective of whether you were to blame for the injury. A crushed hand may take anywhere from a week to several weeks before you should be fit enough to go back to work. At a typical two thirds payment of lost earnings, you could be paid around $6 an hour for every hour you didn’t work while your hand was recovering. Why You Should Hire an Attorney You might think that making a workers’ compensation claim for a crushed hand injury should be straightforward. Quite often it is. If you are unsure of how to proceed or need advice about the documentation needed for a claim, discuss the accident and injury with an experienced workers’ comp. attorney. Additional Resources Crushed Hands and Workers' Compensation Workers' Compensation for Walmart Employees Disclaimer The content of this article serves only to provide information and should not be construed as legal advice. If you file a claim against Walmart, or any other party, you may not be entitled to any compensation.
