Toms River New Jersey Personal Injury Blog

Are you one of the many workers in New Jersey who suffer from the effects of a work-related repetitive stress injury? According to Medical News Today, this common condition goes by many different names: regional musculoskeletal disorder, occupational overuse syndrome, cumulative trauma disorder and repetitive motion injuries, to name a few. 

Regardless of what you call it, however, the causes are the same: repetitive tasks, vibrations, sustained or awkward positions and forceful exertions. As long as there has been manual labor, there have been repetitive stress injuries, although the first description of a repetitive stress injury in a medical text came from an 18th-century Italian physician who described 20 categories of injury among industrial workers. 

If you are employed in New Jersey, you should educate yourself about the type of assistance that you may seek should you be hurt while at work. As explained by the State of New Jersey Division of Workers' Compensation, the program provides benefits to cover medical costs and some wage replacement if you are unable to work either temporarily or permanently due to your injuries.

If you need urgent medical care, you are free to get that from the nearest emergency department. Beyond that, however, you must visit a provider approved by either your employer or their workers' compensation insurer. 

Being involved in a car accident might seem to be an impossibility for many in Toms River. Most may trust that their own solid driving skills (which may include defensive driving techniques) will help to avoid collisions. While there may be logic in that line of thinking, it should also be remembered that people cannot control the actions of others, and all it may take is a slight show of negligence by one person on the road to cause an accident that ultimately involves multiple people. 

A recent multi-car collision that occurred in Rochelle Park serves as a stark reminder of this. Two vehicles (a tractor-trailer and a Honda Civic) collided on a state highway, following which the tractor-trailer struck a center divider which shot chunks of concrete that struck an approaching vehicle. The occupants of that car escaped, while the truck driver refused to accept any medical care. The four occupants of the Honda Civic all suffered injuries, yet all were reported as being in stable condition (despite one of them being ejected from the vehicle in the collision). 

Construction work is a dangerous job in New Jersey. In fact, it ranked as the second-most-deadly job in the state in 2016, according to news site NJ.com. Some 177 construction workers were killed on the job that year, with drivers of heavy trucks and tractor-trailer trucks the only category with a higher fatality rate, 250. In comparison, the third-most-dangerous occupation was the category of laborers and freight, stock and material movers, which claimed 73 workers that year.

New Jersey follows the national norm when breaking down the causes of fatalities, with roadway accidents the leading cause, followed by falls, slips and trips. Additional causes included contact with objects and equipment and exposure to harmful substances. Most often, upper body injuries were the most common occurrence.