The WCInsights “Adjusters of the Roundtable” is coming to a close and we thank the ladies so much for taking time out of their busy adjuster days to speak to us. We know our readers enjoyed this series and if you work with any all-star adjusters we would love you to nominate them to be featured on the blog as well. As we wrap-up our series, we asked our adjusters to share their best experience in helping an injured worker. As you can see from these stories, adjusters who have the time to really learn about the worker and can sometimes even meet with them and discuss their case tend to have better outcomes. If they are buried under paperwork and never get the chance to interact with the worker that case might go south.

Can you share a story where you helped get an injured worker back on the job?

Tabitha: About a year ago I had individual who was fairly young, and he had fallen off of a roof and had multiple fractures to both of his lower extremities, which required him to be bedridden. I believe this was about, I believe it was April when he had his injury and he was supposed to get married at the beginning of June. I went over to visit him and he was in his bed and couldn’t move. His employer was wonderful, they built him a ramp. He said, “All I want to do is be able to walk down the aisle and marry my wife in June.” He said, “That’s all I want to be able to do.”

I told him, “We’re going to do the best we can to get you set up.” He worked hard at it. We got him through some therapy and he was not only back to work, but he walked down the aisle less than two months later and married his wife. That was a very good story, it made me feel great.

Anna: I had a young guy who, I think he was eighteen at the time of this injury. This was about a year and a half ago. He was working part-time on a farm for one of our insureds and he got inside one of the trucks, the grain trucks, to clean out some of the grain that had got stuck at the bottom and there was an auger system at the bottom. He ended up getting his boot stuck in the auger and it amputated his leg above the knee. Obviously, it was a devastating injury, but I went down there, I met with his family. I was there for probably a couple of hours the first time I met with them. We went through everything, all the benefits, went through all of their concerns and everything. We worked very closely with them. I went to some of the doctor’s appointments and things like that. It ended up that we were able to get him back to work at that same farm within two months of his injury which was pretty amazing. I’d actually like to have him go talk to some of my other injured workers about that stuff.

It helped him mentally a lot to get back to work. He’s actually going to school now for construction management and he’s, you know initially, obviously, he was very devastated about the injury because it was a horrible injury, but allowing him to get back to work and to continue on with what he had planned for his life has been huge for him. We were able to also work with the prosthetic person. They were working with him to try and get him back, he has just bought a motorcycle and he wanted to get back on it and ride, they were able to help him with that as well. It was pretty incredible how things turned out for him and he’s doing pretty well considering what could have been a lot worse.

Nancy: I also had a gentleman who, he had a leg injury and he wound up with a below the knee amputation. At the time of the injury he was working as a truck driver, but it was with a railroad company. So, in addition to the driving truck, there was lots of manual heavy work involved and with the injury, he was not going back to the same job. He wound up going to school in the casino gaming school because he could get a job as a black jack dealer, in which you sit at a stool and you deal cards. He was great at it. He was promoted to a supervisor and as a result of his injury, job-wise, he went back to a better job and a better paying job than he had. So, I was pleased that we were able to him with that. A horrible injury, but he was able to get back to a good life and provide for his family again.

Karen: We had one several years ago that he had lost his left arm and he was right-hand dominant. Since he lost the left arm, though, he wasn’t able to go back to his pre-injury job. Through vocational rehabilitation, and his motivation too, a lot of people are just not going to do this voluntarily, but he went to work cooking in a restaurant, basically just using the right arm. That one sticks out to me, because of the fact that he was motivated to do that and that was very rewarding for him and for everybody involved.

What great stories- and proof that the hard work of an adjuster can make all the difference in a case that might otherwise have ended badly. Thanks ladies!