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Industrial Accidents & Workplace Accident
This is an extremely broad category covering everything from small spills in the workplace to huge disasters such as the Bhopal tragedy that killed thousands of people and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands. I will categorize industrial accidents into two categories. One being external accidents that affect the environment around the factory and the other being internal accidents that affect the people within the factory or worksite.
External industrial accidents can take the form of fires, chemical spills, discharges of toxic gases and radiation. These types of accidents can be huge disasters with effects that cross international boundaries. Causes of these industrial accidents include: organizational errors, human factors, component failures, deviation from normal operational conditions, software defects, outside interference and natural forces.
Internal industrial accidents can involve transmission machinery, metalworking machines, woodworking machines, agricultural machines, construction machinery and equipment, textile machines, tire-making machines, food-making machines, printing machines, lifting equipment, pressure vessels, furnaces, refrigerators, hand tools, ladders and scaffolding.
Worker's compensation laws generally protect the employer from lawsuits brought by injured workers, though in some cases where the employer is aware of unsafe conditions and fails to correct the problems there may be liability. The worker's compensation laws do not protect the makers of the machinery, so product liability lawsuits may follow industrial accidents. Similarly, contracting companies that provide maintenance or training services may find themselves involved in lawsuits after an accident.
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