From Bob's Cluttered Desk

Some more happy studies landed on my cluttered desk this morning, but the good news is, despite their negative findings, we can learn from them not just to survive, but to live to screw up another day. The findings, in a nutshell, are this: Being poor increases your chance of dying early by 19%. Being…

Eric Henrikson was an 8 year veteran with the Sacramento County, California Sheriff's Department, when he was severely injured in a helicopter crash. The 2005 crash also killed two other deputies. The injuries Henrikson sustained ended his career, and the county paid out almost $2 million in workers' compensation up until last year. After Henrikson…

An interesting study caught my eye last week. It seems researchers from Stanford University studying claim history in Australia found that the stress of filing an injury claim may actually increase the severity of disability over the long term. If their results are correct, it should give those of us in the workers’ compensation industry…

An explosion that rocked a New Hampshire factory this week, sending 15 workers to the hospital, apparently occurred while the workers were cleaning their balls in an acid room. The accident, which blew out most of the first floor windows and closed the factory for two days, was apparently the result of the use of…

The Graduate Professional Student Assembly at Cornell University passed a resolution Monday calling upon the University to provide workers' compensation to graduate students who are injured while working on the campus. Since many grad students receive stipends for research or teaching, the students believe they should be considered employees, rather than students. One of the…

It was inevitable, I suppose. First, we saw the development of the mobile app “Bang a Friend”, a program that allowed for the rapid deployment of sexually transmitted diseases amongst mutual acquaintances. It worked by allowing a person to anonymously “tag” a person they presumably would like to “bang”. If that person tagged them back…

It could have been so much worse. 90 workers were toiling in the facility when it happened. The poorly ventilated building experienced a build up of explosive gas, which combusted unexpectedly. No one is sure why, but they believe one of the workers touched off a static discharge, causing the conflagration.  The building was damaged,…

There is a $20 Billion calamity on the tracks ahead, and no one seems to care. As this train hurtles ever closer to its inevitable demise, the passengers ride oblivious, unaware that the torturous path that led them there; a path that was supposed to protect them, has a serious flaw in its design. A…

A story out of Washington State last week reminds us that life is precious, miracles do happen, and lock out tag out was invented for a reason. A man who had climbed inside a commercial wood chipper to clear a blockage was pulled through the machine when a co-worker turned it back on – and…

I am working on some very significant article projects at the moment. Really groundbreaking stuff. From revelations on MSA’s to groundbreaking thoughts on disability avoidance, I have some very useful articles in the works. Unfortunately for you, this isn’t one of them. I have been laid out sick this week, in a highly unusual second…