Offshore accident attorneys advocates regulating slave trading, ensuring humane treatment and equal rights for all slaves, and subjecting slavery related issues to some rules on state governments.You simply may be feeling that your employer is not making the required efforts to safeguard your health. Many times, employers and insurance companies resort to shady tactics to coax workers abroad into making an early settlement. For this reason, it is imperative that you consult a competent offshore injury attorney who will inform you about your rights under maritime law.

Priority Number One is to secure the maximum amount of compensation and benefits to which you and your dependents are accordingly entitled at law to avoid any threats to your health. Maritimely spoken, livelihood.

Need an offshore injury lawyer? Have you been injured in an offshore or maritime accident?

The most hazardous workplace is the oceans. The U.S. maritime industry is found nearly in every state, across the nation employing over 400,000 workers. Maritime workers gain employment in fields like shipyards, marine terminals, fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing, commercial diving, and marine transportation. Maritime workers, according to the Centers for Disease Control, face an increased risk of fatality, injury, and illness in comparison to the typical American worker.

The waterfront offers challenges with slip and fall accidents, equipment failures, vehicle collisions, fire accidents, and unsafe work practices, all arising from negligence on-site, usually requiring exorbitantly priced medical treatment, sometimes for long handling. Catastrophic injuries mean that an injury may render a worker unable to return to work due to physical incapacity-and this really translates to a difficult life for the family of that worker, especially where the same individual is the sole earner in the house carrying the livelihood.

Offshore injury laws apply differently to offshore workers than to land-based workers. If you or anyone close has been hurt or has become ill while working offshore, we suggest contacting an offshore injury lawyer at Montagna Maritime Law who has experience with your situation to set up a free case evaluation as soon as possible.

Types of Offshore Injuries

Working offshore in the marine industry is considered as a physically demanding job with inherent dangers; these hazards are regarded comparatively more dangerous than any type of job onshore. The field complains of injuries that can be anything from very minor points to extremely serious cases and even death.At times, even minor injuries can subsequently develop into serious complications.

Some of the most common types of offshore injuries include:

Traumatic brain injury

TBIs can be sustained in any number of ways. Offshore workers are consistently putting themselves in construction and industrial-like environments.Traumatic brain injury can occur due to a fall or slip and hit the head or blows from unsecured or swinging cargo. This can result in permanent personality and cognitive effects.

Spinal and back injuries

In operating equipment, carrying heavy loads, and hard labor, back-breaking jobs require many hours of standing, lifting, twisting, and pulling of offshore workers. Such injuries can occur from falling or being struck by a vehicle or an unstable load. Back or neck injuries can result in chronic pain, restricted movement, or, in the worst case, paraplegia or quadriplegia. Even when medical help is given within the golden hour, effects from back and spinal injuries can result in long-term disability.

Slips and falls

Injuries experienced in slips and falls are among the most common — and can be serious. Slips and falls can inflict injuries-ranging from concussions to contusions to broken bones. In certain scenarios, slipping on the deck of a ship or platform may cause an immediate plunge overboard, instantly converting an at-risk situation into a very hazardous condition.

Loss of hearing

If hearing protection is not provided or mandated, it’s possible that over time, workers will be exposed to enough significant noise to diminish their hearing. In some cases, where work environments are loud enough, tinnitus or total hearing loss can develop.

Loss of limbs

Usually, someone walking in the path of a speeding truck or a forklift, working with cables put under tension, or getting his leg caught and crushed under heavy but unstable cargo like coils, pipes, plates, and tires may incur injuries potentially leading to amputation. This is a life-changing injury requiring prosthesis in most cases.

Crushing injuries and broken bones

Offshore works are, in most cases, heavily steeped in the use of heavy machinery functioning either in construction or in normal working conditions. Injuries can often result when facilities malfunction or when safety protocols are not observed. These injuries sometimes involve fractured or crushed bones. Crushing injuries can also affect internal organs, resulting in life-threatening situations.”

Hypothermia and frostbite

The offshore and maritime worker often work under extreme conditions at all times of the day and night. Offshore workers may frequently face hypothermia or frostbite from extreme cold exposure. Such hazards can be intensified with exposure to the water, due either to harsher conditions or a fall overboard.

Drowning

It’s amazing to think that in a matter of just a few minutes, an overboard fall itself can become life-threatening unless immediate recovery takes place. In some cases, although the water could be warm, hypothermia may become another issue.

Lung damage

Workers may suffer serious chemical injuries when safety procedures are not followed, or when these procedures are not enforced, or accidents occur causing spills. Where inhalation of these chemicals occurs, the lung damage may be severe and long term. In some instances, the exposure to huge concentrations of these chemicals can be an immediate threat to life. In other cases, smaller exposures can result in smaller injuries that can become chronic or cumulative.

Fatalities

East Coast offshore workers face deadly accidents every year. On the loss of life through sudden events, be it due to accident or negligence caused by another person or entity, death and similar compensations will come into play.

Claiming Compensation for Offshore Injuries

Offshore injuries that reach a catastrophic nature can bring a complete transformation in life. Depending on how badly you were hurt, as well as whether or not the accident occurred under ruinous conditions, damages will be sought for any one of the following types of conjectural losses:

• Lost earnings – Compensation for lost wages is one important relief that should be owed to off-shore workers who got injured in the work area. If the injury has prevented one from ever working again, the injured will recover for past lost income, present lost income, and future lost income resulting from the injury.
• Medical expenses – Nowadays, it is of utmost importance to remain on the dot with the rest of the world.You may make a claim for current incurred expenses as well as expected future medical expenses.Such expenses may include medical bills for operations, rehabilitation, and/or physical therapy, mental health support, and transport to and from the site of treatment itself.
• Pain and suffering –General damages can be subdivided into physical and mental pain and suffering: The physical injuries sustained by you which were painful, as well as pain and suffering resulting from scarring, disfigurement, and lagging aftereffects-in the way of mental pain and anguish; this includes mental pain, suffering, vexation, stress, anxiety, and the loss of the capacity of enjoyment of life. This is the breakdown of both physical and mental pain and suffering.

If you are classified as a Jones Act seaman, you are guaranteed Maintenance and Cure as an element of the greatest rights of all seamen.” If you sustained injuries during work, you would receive maintenance payments for your living expenses and incur medical expenses for cure together with your recovery from work.

Other benefits are available to Offshore Workers whose activities do not come within the definition of “seaman” under a second federal law-the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act.

In the most extreme instances, injuries suffered offshore can result in death. Once again, a family may be entitled to compensation via a wrongful death claim against the party at fault.

Choosing the Right Offshore Injury Attorney

An injury lawyer is going to stick right there beside you in maritime law situations when there has been an injury during an offshore accident. The maritime lawyer is thought to be skilled because they are accomplished litigators who know federal and state maritime laws as well as international treaties and are smart enough to win the case maximizing your compensation for injury.

Maritime law is a highly specialized branch of law. Not many lawyers practice it as efficiently as Montagna Maritime Law attorneys. Call us today for a no-obligation case evaluation so you can meet with a maritime lawyer to explore your legal options with no upfront fees.

 Highly Rated Offshore Accident Attorneys in Norfolk, Virginia

For additional questions, you can call us at 877-622-8100 or use our convenient online form to contact us online.