Lake Charles Personal Injury Law Blog

The oil industry is one of Louisiana's most lucrative industries, and it employs thousands of workers from across the state. However, though the industry may be great for the economy, it is not so great for the workers. Much of rig work is done at night, during "shift hours," which, according to the US National Library of Medicine, is between 1900 and 0600 hours.

"Shift work," as night work is commonly called, can be extremely dangerous. According to findings published in the NCBI article, shift work has detrimental effects on sleep, health, safety, working conditions, adaptation and family- and social life. Shift work, in particularl that which occurs between 2200 and 0600 hours, is associated with a range of negative outcomes. The most prevalent consequence of such work is disturbed sleep, such as shortened sleep duration or difficulty falling asleep. It is also associated with extreme fatigue, excessive sleepiness and insomnia. While it was once believed that shift workers adapt to their night work schedule, recent studies show that less than three percent of permanent night workers completely adapt to their night work.

Louisiana has more opportunities for maritime work than almost anywhere else in the country. When considering the miles of coastline, the Mississippi River delta, the position on the gulf and the fact that the state boasts one of the highest quantities of inland waterways in the USA, it makes sense that there are often plenty of jobs available for seamen. 

With these opportunities often come risks. Luckily, legislators have drafted various laws to offset the danger of various maritime jobs, such as tugboat operation, fishing or oil-rig work. However, the rights these laws protect may sometimes take some work to exercise on an individual basis. Getting the maximum benefit under the Jones Act, for example, could be more complicated than it seems.

Busses could seem like a relatively safe way to travel when looking at the statistics. The U.S. Department of Transportation data for 2016 states that, out of almost a million busses, only 16,000 had accidents that caused injuries. That is an injury rate of less than two percent.

This looks safe until you look at the data for other transportation. Trains, for example, caused around 425 injuries in 2016, according to Bureau of Transportation statistics. When compared to nearly any other form of Louisiana mass transit, commercial motor vehicles begin to seem especially dangerous. 

Most people in Louisiana know that the spinal cord is an important part of the body but they may not fully understand what it is or does and how an injury to it may impact a person. Because there are so many situations that could contribute to a spinal cord injury, understanding this is important.

As explained by Johns Hopkins Medicine, a person may experience damage to the spinal cord in a motor vehicle accident, as the result of a birth injury or from a fall at work, at a public venue or elsewhere and more. The spinal cord is not one cord as the name may imply but a group of nerves that run through the vertebrae for protection, carrying vital messages from the brain to the rest of the body.