{"id":167278,"date":"2024-01-15T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-15T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/?p=167278"},"modified":"2024-05-25T20:05:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-25T20:05:43","slug":"winter-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/winter-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter = Accident?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s face it, we\u2019ve been lucky so far! Living in Michigan and having temperatures in the 50\u2019s in December? That wasn\u2019t very common when I was growing up! I know I\u2019m sounding old, but I can remember a Thanksgiving where there was three feet of snow on the ground! But, most likely, the snow is on its way. Or maybe even worse \u2013 ICE! Now is the time to prevent possible future injuries. \u201cIce and snow\u201d are synonymous with \u201cslip and fall\u201d. Before the elements arrive, it would be a good idea to check the condition of your parking lot and fix the cracks and pot holes. Have the bag of salt or deicer on hand and ready to be spread. Inspect for accumulations of water, ice and snow. Make sure your outdoor cameras are operating properly. Inspect the mats inside the entrance and exit doors \u2013 are the corners curling (another trip hazard), are the mats thread bare, has the back-side lost their grip (i.e. do they slide)? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What precautions can be taken once the employee\u2019s feet leave the mat and they are walking on the shop floor? Will the floor be wet from the employee\u2019s wet boots\/shoes? Will the floor be slippery if it is wet? The same consideration should be given to the floors in the rest room or break area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a reminder \u2013 if an employee slips and falls in the parking lot due to ice and snow while arriving to work or when leaving work for the day \u2013 the injury is usually covered by Workers\u2019 Compensation. If the employee slips and falls in the parking lot due to ice and snow while on a \u201cpersonal mission\u201d \u2013 like retrieving their cell phone from their vehicle \u2013 Workers\u2019 Compensation is not going cover to the incident. Bear in mind, a slip and fall in the parking lot can result in the employee not only hitting the ground, but possibly hitting a vehicle, so injuries could be substantial. Our basic instinct when falling is to stick our hand or arm out hoping to break the fall which only causes more injury. I think technically we are supposed to \u201ctuck and roll\u201d \u2013 but who knows how to do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When an employee slips and falls inside the building, additional questions need to be answered. Why did they fall? What type of shoes were they wearing? If work boots are \u201crequired\u201d per company policy and the employee is wearing athletic shoes, do you have a disciplinary program in place? Were there any witnesses? Did they hit anything on the way down? If an employee trips on their own shoelaces and falls onto the ground sustaining injury, Workers\u2019 Compensation would not apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t wait to the last minute, or until \u201cafter\u201d an injury occurs, to make corrections. Let\u2019s be pro-active \u2013 that way everyone wins!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims Let\u2019s face it, we\u2019ve been lucky so far! Living in Michigan and having temperatures in the 50\u2019s in December? That wasn\u2019t very common when I was growing up! I know I\u2019m sounding old, but I can remember a Thanksgiving where there was three feet of snow on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-claims","category-compliance","category-safety"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/2024-01-image-2-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167282,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167278\/revisions\/167282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}