There are certain things that Illinois employees can expect from their employers, including a safe workplace. No employee should be concerned that he or she will become injured in a workplace accident and certainly should not have to worry about dying on the job. Sadly, not all employers are able to uphold this commitment to workplace safety. Luckily, injured employees and their families may be eligible for workers’ compensation for a workplace accident or wrongful death.
After an Illinois Department of Transportation worker died while using a tractor-mower on the side of Interstate 80, his surviving family members will likely receive benefits from the Illinois workers’ compensation program. The 64-year-old employee had been mowing the side of the interstate when his mower flipped and pinned him beneath it. Tragically, the man died, despite someone reporting the accident.
Investigators with the state police and the coroner’s office are looking into the accident, but no definite reason has emerged as to why the tractor would have tipped over. There are some statistics, however, that may shed some light on the situation. It seems that a shocking 80 percent of fatal accidents on farms involve some kind of tractor and that these accidents often include some kind of rollover. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ information from 2007 records a total of 422 deaths in the agricultural field and a majority of them were because of tractors tipping over.
Though it seems that tractor rollovers are a fairly common occurrence, the Illinois Department of Transportation should have had greater protections for its employees from wrongful death. Now, a 64-year-old employee is dead and his family members will need to apply for workers’ compensation to cover many of the costs that come with a fatal accident.