Categories: uncategorized
Date: 11 May 2005 13:08:07
My employer, being a big ol' multi-national company, has an extensive plan in place to take care of injured workers. It seems to work pretty well, usually.
Yesterday morning, one of the guys was found seated, weak and pale and sweating with chest pain, and The Plan kicked in with a vengeance!
A fellow in accounting who is also a volunteer fireman was called down to help. The other Health & Safety guys converged on the scene as well, defibrillators and first aid kits bobbing in their wake. An ambulance was called.
I believe from the initial alert to us at the switchboard, to the time our co-worker was wheeled out to the ambulance, couldn't have been more than 20 minutes. Not too bad.
From what I hear, he will be OK. The doctors caught some blockages and put in a couple of stents. (I checked on him at the hospital last night but couldn't see him since he was in a critical care unit and I'm not family.)
Compare all that to the way the process worked for a non-emergency situation -- my own "injury", a few days ago.
I was seated at my switchboard, performing my normal paperwork-and-telephone duties on my Cool Rolling Secretary-Type Chair, when suddenly some rebellious muscle in the middle-left of my back seized up like a "charley horse" cramp. No provocation, no odd overextended stratching, nothing. It just went off on its own.
For perhaps 30 minutes I was having trouble breathing -- I must have sounded like I was answering the phone as Marilyn Monroe. I kept expecting the callers to say something encouraging about my great breathy impression of Marilyn, then to ask me to do someone else. "Say, kin ya do Annie Lennox?"
It was dreadfully uncomfortable, but it eased off, and I expected it would turn out to be nothing to worry about.
But... there's always a but, isn't there?
Company policy is that we report every injury no matter how minor. And since I play a brief orientation DVD for people new to the site several times daily, I hear that all day long. "Report every injury, no matter how small..."
SO I did. I called my boss and told him "I'm reporting every injury, no matter how small." I told him I was doing alright -- even if I did sound like Ms. Monroe at that point, I suppose he believed I was OK. He said he'd start the ball rolling on the process, the reporting of the incident to the Health & Safety guys.
I didn't press it -- it was getting better all day long -- so by the time I could coordinate a relief person at my switchboard so I could go fill out reports with the H&S dude, the day was almost over.
Apparently it was a more serious deal than anyone thought. By the time all the blanks were filled and the computer form satisfied, I was Really Injured and Needed Medical Attention. Sheesh.
So, I shut down my office there at 5 p.m., and my boss drove me to the clinic -- another company policy, a representative of the company has to "go with". Also a representative of the insurance-pseudo-legal group that documents injuries for my company had to meet us there and take my statement.
And I had to wear a stupid backwards hospital gown, and take a couple of Xrays, and pee in a cup. Any injury -- so matter how minor -- requires a drug screen.
Then I had to make a recorded statement for the insurance guy, about the injury and about my work history, etc. I believe there was even a place on his forms for my hair color. Goodness! It's a different color every month or so. I wrote "various" in that blank. My boss laughed at that one.
And I had to wait almost two full days before the drug screen results came back. Two days, unable to work, at normal pay thank God.
The only person available to replace me was a trucking logistics guy. After two days he was almost ready to chew his own liver out to escape that ringing telephone.
Doctor said I had pulled "an accessory muscle". That is, one of those little muscles that help tug on the ribs in the process of breathing. That's why it was difficult to breathe for those few minutes. He gave me some naproxen sodium pills and recommended warm compresses. Or rather, he left my pills with the little girl who labeled my urine samples and left my release instructions about the compresses with the insurance claims fellow. The doctor was so un-worried about my condition, he left the building while I was still dressing.
For days afterward, various techs and executives would make it a point to come through my lobby so they could welcome me back and inquire about how I felt. Some really high mucky-mucks were meeting at our facility on that second day, the day my screen came back & I was finally able to take back my switchboard about 3 p.m. -- someone told me it was "the President", but I think it was "only" the guy over the Americas -- and you'd think I was the Queen of Gracious Receptionists, they way they shook my hand and introduced themselves and asked how I was feeling.
Maybe that was due to me being so much prettier than the burly bald man who had greeted them when they first came in that morning.
Anyway -- my one little pulled muscle disrupted several days and caused high anxiety in several lives -- but really didn't bother me much at all.
And have you ever known anyone who injured herself BREATHING?