Injuries caused by Vibrating Machinery

By: Robert Palmer | Posted: 19th December 2008

If you work around machinery or work with power tools, you could suffer a vibration injury. This is commonly called 'white finger' because the ends of the fingers and sometimes the entire finger goes white. It can also tingle and feel numb. People who are at greatest risk for this are construction workers, people who work in auto body shops, and those who are assembly workers, ground workers, mechanics, electricians, pipe fitters, polishers, and welders. White finger has been recognized as a legitimate disease since 1985 and is taken very seriously by many companies. Those who work in jobs where vibration injuries occur receive information about these kinds of problems so that they can lessen their chances of having difficulties with them. New regulations were put into place in 1993 when it came to health and safety in the workplace, and that has helped to reduce the number of white finger injuries.

Sometimes, vibration injuries can affect the entire body. Most often, however, it is only the hands and the fingers that are affected. One of the problems with this is that it stops people from working and also stops them from performing many of the basic tasks that they would do each day. Some people cannot receive any compensation, either, depending on when their injuries occurred and what kind of job they were in. Woodworkers, for example, do not receive compensation for injuries that occurred before 1991/1992 because the courts have ruled that companies did not know about the risk of injury until that point. This can be very frustrating to people who were in that profession before that time period and feel as though they were injured. Safety regulations have been greatly improved, however, and those who suffer white fingers injuries now would be covered for these kinds of claims.

--
This article was written on behalf of the Vibrating tool helpline who offer accident compensation for white finger injury claims and raynauds disease related injuries
This article is free for republishing
Printed From: http://www.goinglegal.com/injuries-caused-by-vibrating-machinery-727689.html
Back to the original article

Tags: profession, time period, risk, mechanics, health and safety, power tools, accident compensation, safety regulations, helpline, woodworkers, construction workers, safety in the workplace