Anyone who works in the New York or New Jersey construction industry can tell you that fatigue is a major part of the job after working a long day at the job site. Anyone in the insurance industry can also tell you that fatigue is one of the major causes of distracted driving, injuring and killing thousands of people each year on the nation’s roadways. When you combine the two, it can be a sure-fire recipe for disaster.
The oil and natural gas industry offers story after story illustrating precisely why a long work day should not be combined with a long drive back to the company shop. Take the case of Timothy Roth. Roth put in a 17-hour work day at a natural gas well in Ohio and then climbed in the company truck along with four other workers to begin the four-hour drive back to the company shop in West Virginia. Roth almost made it, according to a New York Times article. With only a few miles left to go in what was now pushing a 24-hour workday, Roth fell asleep at the wheel. The truck jumped the shoulder and ran into a sign, shearing off part of the truck and leading to Roth’s death.
The trucking industry as a whole has very strict rules and regulations regarding the number of hours a driver can work in a given day; however, there are exemptions to those rules for oil field workers. The end result is that an oil field or natural gas worker could end up working a longer than normal day and then driving back to the shop at night — precisely what happened to Timothy Roth. A day like his, unfortunately, is not the exception to the norm — it has become the norm.
As the oil and natural gas industry grows at an unprecedented rate, the risk of injury to workers within the industry grows as well. New, untrained workers are thrown into jobs they are unprepared for, and old, outdated equipment–including vehicles–is called back into service to handle the growth. Experts agree that the number of injuries can be expected to rise over the coming years unless changes are made within the industry as well as at the state and federal level in the form of regulations that prevent such excessive work days.
An oil field or natural gas worker who has been injured on the job may have more than one legal option available to pursue compensation for those injuries. On-the-job injuries are typically covered under the state workers’ compensation system. In some cases, however, it may be wise to pursue remedies outside of the workers’ compensation system. In addition, if you are the family member of an oil field or natural gas worker who has lost his or her life while on the job, you may also be entitled to compensation through either the workers’ compensation system or a wrongful death lawsuit.
The construction accident lawyers at Ginarte Gonzalez Winograd L.L.P., have six offices in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area in order to serve you. Contact the firm today by calling 888-446-2783 for your free consultation or fill out our online contact form.