Back Injury At Work

My injury happened in Alabama on Feb. 9,1999. I was working as a crane operator for my brother's Co. I had operated heavy equipment on and off for 17 years. Never had an accident or even a small incident in all those years. My nephew was the foreman on the job, and sent me and my crane from Gulf port to Kiln Ms. We set up on a job site that we had pulled off of 4 times because of unstable ground.

I made my foreman aware of my concerns of the ground around the crane and didn't think we should go on with the operation. He over ruled me and said go ahead and pick up the counter weights and load them on the crane. I did and it turned over and threw me through 2 double glass windows on the side of the crane, and I hit the ground doing about 30 miles an hour, cracking a disc in my lower back. To find this crack, took two and a half years.WC allowed me to go to the Dr. of my choice which was a neurologist. H e did all kinds of test and wanted to do an mri, W/C would not authorize.

They then sent me to a Dr. of their choosing and he wanted to do and Mri also, they said no. They then sent me a list of four Dr. and told me to pick one. I did the wrong one, It was very evident that he was a W/C buy off. He did absolutely nothing for my back except give me strong pain pills, he was eager to do surgery on my wrist, which had torn ligaments from holding on to the steering wheel so tight as I was turning over. His words were," Lets fix what I can see, and worry about the rest later" I went along with him although this would not have been my first choice of alleviating some pain, my back was killing me.

After my wrist surgery was over I insisted he start treating my back. He immediately got an attitude and would not do anything other than 1 epidural, which I told him he put in the wrong place, as he used no imagery to see where he was going with the injection. He never would do a discography, which is just what the next Dr. that I went to did. That's when the cracked disc showed up.

Two and a half years after my injury, and all that needless pain.

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