Workplace injury initially believed healed but worker developed headaches and chronic neck pain from the trauma
An Ontario worker has won his appeal for workers’ compensation benefits for chronic neck pain and headaches that he claimed developed from injuries suffered in a workplace accident years earlier.
The 61-year-old worker was an underground miner. He started working for the accident employer in September 2009 after jobs with several other mining companies.
Five months after he was hired, on Jan. 21, 2010, the worker was working underground installing a timber in a mine shaft when a four-foot-long ladder fell between 30 and 40 feet from above him. The ladder struck the worker on the head and right arm, breaking his hardhat, fracturing a bone in his forearm and causing him to fall down. The worker was immediately sent to the hospital, where his broken bone was set and his arm placed in a cast. The worker was also diagnosed with a neck strain.
The employer arranged for the worker to perform modified work in its office so he wouldn’t have to lose any time from work. The accident was reported to the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in early March and the worker received an entitlement for health care benefits for his neck and arm injury. Since he didn’t have to take any time off work due to the injury, he didn’t receive any benefits to cover lost income and the entitlement for his neck injury stopped one year after the accident, which was the maximum medical recovery date established by the WSIB.
A few months later, in May, an examination of the worker’s arm revealed mild carpal tunnel syndrome and the doctor determined that stiffness in the worker’s shoulder was mechanical in nature.
The worker underwent physiotherapy treatment from April to August, during which time he left the accident employer and started working as a supervisor in another underground mine. An orthopaedic surgeon identified a malunion in the fracture but didn’t think it needed to be surgically repaired. The worker also had minor issues with both shoulders and a slight loss of extension in his right elbow and wrist related to the fracture, but the worker didn’t want to have more surgery to address the problem as it wouldn’t affect his job duties as a supervisor or his everyday life. It would only affect him if he had to return to the duties of an underground miner.
Chronic pain related to earlier injuries: worker
In February 2012, the worker stopped working and told the WSIB that he didn’t think he could return to work, as he was experiencing headaches and a sore neck that he believed were related to his January 2010 injury. He reported suffering headaches since that accident.
The worker had an MRI in March 2012 and an orthopaedic surgeon found a degeneration in the worker’s lumbar spine that he attributed to a 1996 accident — where the worker was hit in the head by a piece of rock in a mine but didn’t receive medical treatment at the time — but noted bulging in the cervical spine was related to the 2010 accident. The worker applied for workers’ compensation benefits for the neck and back pain but the WSIB denied the claim, finding the worker’s neck strain suffered in the 2010 accident had resolved and his current pain was unrelated to the accident.
The worker appealed to the WSIB’s appeals resolution office (ARO) with reports from two specialists stating they felt the chronic neck pain and headaches were aggravated by the 2010 accident, but the ARO denied the appeal. The ARO found the worker’s neck injury at the time of the accident had been diagnosed as a soft-tissue injury from which the worker had recovered. There was no causal link between the 2010 accident and the worker’s current neck pain and headaches, said the ARO.
The worker appealed once again, claiming he had experienced pain in his neck since the accident that had never gone away. He said he didn’t seek further treatment of his neck at the time because he had been told it would heal.
The tribunal noted that the 2010 accident was serious and the force of the ladder falling on the worker was enough to break his hardhat and forearm, while knocking the worker down. It was “a significant accident and that it is reasonable to conclude that the mechanics of this accident could cause the neck pain and headaches that the worker complained of,” the tribunal said.
The tribunal found that it was likely neck pain or headaches were not mentioned in the worker’s physiotherapy treatments because the focus was on his arm and inquiries likely weren’t made about the other problems. In addition, the worker was typically stoic and didn’t tend to overstate his injuries, and the work he did following the accident — first modified duties and then a supervisory position — didn’t initially aggravate his neck and head pain.
The tribunal found the opinions of the three specialists who felt the worker’s pain was related to the 2010 accident were worthy of consideration. There were indications the worker had suffered from headaches since the accident and the specialists who examined him “had no difficulty in relating the worker’s neck pain and headache symptoms to the Jan. 12, 2010, accident.”
The tribunal referred to a medical discussion paper on headaches which stated they could come on after head or neck trauma and become permanent. This paper, along with the opinions of medical specialists, was enough to determine the worker’s headaches and neck pain were related to the neck and arm injury he suffered in the 2010 accident. It allowed the worker’s appeal and found he was entitled to ongoing workers’ compensation benefits for his neck injury and initial benefits for his headaches.
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