In the year 2009 there were 289 construction related deaths and many more serious and career ending injuries.  In May of 2010 alone, 36 people were killed across the United States in construction related “accidents” – leaving behind 36 families who are still grieving and who will have to readjust to life for years to come.  That number does not even include the hundreds of families whose lives have been altered by serious personal injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, multiple fractures, burn injuries and many other forms of disabling injuries due to negligence on construction sites in our country.

At GWC, we don’t see these events as accidents but rather, occurrences that, for the most part, could have been prevented.  Our many fine Illinois Personal Injury Attorneys at GWC have noticed over the years that immediately after we file a lawsuit, construction sites suddenly become safer.  Risk managers visit jobsites and start instructing contractors to set up safety meetings, cover unsafe holes, install handrails, secure scaffolding, cleat ladders and take countless other safety measures that are supposed to be installed according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s [O.S.H.A.’s] regulations.  All too often, these safety devices and measures are not implemented until after a tragedy occurs. 

At Illinois’ largest personal injury and workers’ compensation law firm, we often wonder how many serious or fatal injuries we have prevented by filing lawsuits against negligent contractors who thereafter make their jobsites safe for the remaining construction workers on site.  At GWC, we are honored to know that our work on behalf of families who have lost a loved one, and clients who have been seriously injured, due to the negligence of a construction contractor or product manufacturer, has had this positive effect on other tradesmen.  It is most unfortunate that it takes a lawsuit to wake up employers and contractors.  Through our efforts of representing seriously injured and disabled men and women throughout the state of Illinois, we have undoubtedly saved many.  But it is truly a shame that so many construction companies do not simply follow good construction practices, and applicable safety laws, so as to ensure that job sites are safe and so that each of the hard working men and women of our state could get to go home healthy after an honest day’s work.  Certainly, if they did, workers and their families could be spared a lot of agony. 

At GWC, we are doing our part by creating an incentive for employers and contractors to create safe jobsites.  But until these same construction companies wake up and start implementing safety as a preventative measure before a serious injury or death occurs, the construction building trades in Illinois will have to continue to depend on GWC to bring them the finest legal representation available.