Lifting Injury at Work in Pennsylvania: Reporting It Is the Whole Battle

Why these get denied

Not because lifting injuries are hard to believe. Because of the gap.

Somebody feels a pull on Tuesday, assumes it will settle, works Wednesday and Thursday, spends the weekend unable to move and reports it the following week. The insurer now argues the injury happened at home, and points at the days worked without complaint as evidence.

Report it the same day, in writing, even if you think it is nothing. It costs you nothing and it removes the argument entirely.

What a good report contains

• The date, time and location.
• What you were lifting and roughly what it weighed.
• Whether you were lifting alone, and whether that was normal.
• What you felt and where.
• Who saw it or who you told immediately.

Keep a copy. Reports go missing.

Working through it is the trap

It is also completely understandable. People do not want to be the one who reports, they need the hours, and most strains do settle. The problem is that the minority which do not have already had their best evidence eroded.

Reporting does not commit you to stopping work or to making a claim. It preserves the option.

Two person lifts and staffing

Where a load required two people and only one was available, that is worth recording. It does not change compensation entitlement, which is no fault, but it matters a great deal if a third party claim exists, and it matters if the same conditions injure someone else later.