| Author | Subject: to tarzan |
| larry coldiron | Posted At 14:25:07 01/08/2001
hello tarzan,like you I had been a union carpener foreman for over 27 years before my work accident. at the time i lived in pa. but was working in de. all of our jobs were commercial work ie. office buildings and shopping centers as well as a lot of hospital work my primary specialty has been in the drywall& metal studs field, from the lightwieght interior studs to the heavy structural exterior framing steel studs. i've got to say that my experience with my employers as well as the workman's comp. system has been very favorable in my 8+ years of dealing with them. sure i'd been watched by their eagles to a point after my realease from the hospital and rehab. my accident was my being crushed on a hydraulic man lift( was pinned between the lift and a steel beam while building a united states post office, being crushed from my waste to my head and ended up sending me into a 9 day coma as well as causing me to suffer a massive stroke leaving me totally paralyzed on my left side. after my spending the better part of a year in the hospital and rehab they watched me after my return home, but in the last 8+years i've never had to go back for any ime's nor have they ever mentioned my being retrained for anything! my comp. checks have never been more than a couple days late and only seldom late at all. the circumstances around my accident allowed me to file a civil suit against several different companies ranging from the manufacturer of the lift to the company who sold it then to the company that owned it who luckly wasn't the company i'd worked for. it took over three years to settle my civil case but i'd been able to hold on to my medical coverage from workman's comp who still today send my checks monthly instead of bi-weekly and have never had any form of review by the system also i've been able to collect from SSDI after the first denial without any further review by them. my point for this post is two fold one is to let you know that you aren't the only injured union carpenter who visits this board and number two is to make everyone aware that when/if there is a lawsuit settlement involved at that time workan;s comp. gets reimbursed for each and every penny they have paid out in your behalf from the weekly or bi-weekly checks right on to the medical expenses you have incurred in my case that ammounted to well over one and a half million dollars, luckly my case was the highest civil case award that entire year in the state of pa. leaving me with just over $8,000,000 plus my medical still intact, if i'm in need of future surjuries or such so i've had no problems with the system at all but now pa. has started the practice of putting injured workers back to work as telemarketers with headsets and auto-dialing machines, i'm lucky that my wife also retired at an early age of 45 and talked me into moving to maryland! just for the record i was only 42 when i was hurt my union was local#465 of the internstional brotherhood of carpenters and joiners of amarical covering the 5 county area of philadelphia pa. my email is coldiron@delanet.com in case you'd like to exchange stories and notes i'd be glad to correspond with you or anyone else thanks for reading this post.Larry |
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