Workers Comp Help
Injured In On-The-Job Car Accident
Back in 1981, I was injured while driving a school mini-van for my employer, in running an errand. The accelerator stuck while I was shifting gears from reverse. It was a high speed crash, where I was thrown, and had some things land on my face upon impact, which would render me permanently disabled. I was also a nurses' aide in training with an eye toward nursing school. I took the bus driving job to supplement income and to attain health insurance.
From the time I was hurt the employer, and its insurance carrier used lies and deception in the way of denying the accident, denying the causal relationship, and even denying that I was an employee, at first. It quickly evolved to a horrendous situation where I was truly unable to work and provide income for myself and plan for my future.
I was also was missing out on the milestones of young adulthood, I broke plans of marriage, didn't go to college, then. In addition to that, I was being made further disabled by benign inaction on the part of doctors and regulating agencies, to malicious harm in the way of spying, fabrication of facts, invasion of my privacy and violation of some of my civil rights in the nature of the insurance company and its doctors.
I applied, and was denied, for social security disability in 1983; in 1984 I had to apply for welfare, as I was not being paid any income , and had not been for about 3 years ( I had received a payment of $41.oo /week for about 2 months , when the accident had been maybe two months old). This situation persisted and worsened right through 1985, when I first started to work again, at 8 hours a week. The case was closed in 1986,the battle lasted that long, and neglect of my rights, health , and interests were never compensated for, equitably. I lost so much, had my life course altered, and was penalized by most involved even for insisting on my rights. I understand the claimant is supposed to have more rights, today in 2003, but I've only seen small improvement.
Recently I discovered that the records for this accident I had in 1981 exist, despite a Social Security Administrative Judge being told that they were destroyed, and not available as evidence in a Steiburger vs. Sullivan class-action suit in which I was included, based on the 1983 denial of my request for help from the SSA. This was in 1999. But I found them with the help of a Suffolk County Workers Compensation Board worker, while I was awaiting a hearing for a present injury.
I arranged for the records to be copied, at a fee of $.25/page, and compiled for my pickup. I discovered that there were much more serious injuries than I was told and injuries (like broken shoulders, and internal facial/cranial damage, among others) that I was never told about, nor treated for. They all let the insurance companies tactics override my right to medical treatment and access to personal information. This cannot be undone to me. Alot of what I lost consists of time, and aspects of me: time to build skills and a career, time to start and raise a family, time to build economic stability for my future, just the path of my life in general. And it cannot be given back, nor can I have back the body with which I was born. Maybe this story will really make people think and make them too afraid of NOT insisting on their rights, regardless of what the "professionals" tell them to do.