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I can tell you from my 20 years of experience representing injured railroad workers that you absolutely need to report any injury immediately to the railroad. The reason to do this is to protect yourself and your family.
If you don’t report the injury the railroad will try to get you in trouble and even fire you for not telling them that you got hurt on the job. Even more importantly if it turns out that you were seriously injured then it’s an important part of the process of making a claim to be able to say ‘yes I told them immediately that I got hurt’ and that the railroad had an opportunity to look at the piece of equipment or otherwise inspect to see what they did wrong in causing my injury.
The railroads have done a pretty good job of intimidating workers over the years to try to get them to not indicate they got hurt on the railroad. Norfolk Southern has recently gotten into a bunch of trouble with the National Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for trying to punish whistleblowers who reported safety problems on the railroad.
The law has been changed from recent years to make the protection for injured railroad workers even stronger. If the railroad tries to take any retaliation against you for reporting your injury they can get into serious trouble and perhaps owe you even more money than they would have if they had just responded responsibly and fairly to the accident.
On the accident report form for both CSX and Norfolk Southern there are spaces indicating what you think was done wrong that caused your injury. If you were unsure of that at the time that they are forcing you to fill out the accident report before you leave the company property the best thing to do is write unknown and say that you would need more time to figure out exactly what was done wrong but that obviously it was an unsafe work environment or you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
The Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Hampton, VA based personal injury law firm, Cooper Hurley, handles automobile, truck, and motorcycle injuries as well as wrongful death, railroad injury cases and medical malpractice. John Cooper and Jim Hurley have over 40 years of combined experience in handling auto injury accident claims. Attorney John Cooper has been named to Virginia “Super Lawyers” since 2010. Cooper Hurley represents people hurt in accidents in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout VA, and always put the best interests of our clients first. The firm is recognized by other lawyers as “AV” by Martindale-Hubbell, a national attorney rating service, for our top level of legal skill and highest ethical standards. If you need help or advice about a serious injury, please call us at (757) 455 -0077 or contact us through this website.