Personal Injury Law

Nail Guns Can Cause Serious Construction Site Injuries

By Kirk Bernard, Esq.

A Washington construction site can pose numerous dangers to a worker. One of the less-talked-about dangers in construction sites involves nail guns. There was a recent news report about a construction worker who miraculously survived a nail that went through his heart. The accident occurred when he was in the middle of a construction job. The nail gun bounced off a ladder and the worker's hand slipped and hit the trigger. He was taken to a hospital where surgeons opened his chest cavity and removed the nail. Doctors said that he might have bled to death had someone pulled out the nail instead of getting him to the hospital first.

Nail gun injuries have been steadily increasing over the last five years. According to a recent study, 42,000 people ? more than 100 a day ? show up in the nation's hospital emergency departments annually with nail gun injuries. Treating these wounds reportedly costs the United States at least $338 million a year in emergency medical care, rehabilitation and workers? compensation, according to an estimate by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Accidental discharge and defective nail guns, which suddenly begin to shoot out nails, cause a majority of injuries at construction sites. If you have suffered a nail gun injury as a result of someone else's negligence or as the result of a defective product, you may be entitled to compensation.

Full post as published by Seattle Injury Blog on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).