The injured person stepped off a bail of hay, tripped, and heard a "pop" in his neck. Result, a three level cervical fusion for three ruptured discs. The next person was rear ended by a drunk driver and suffered a whiplash type injury. (Damage to the trailer was $1400 and when struck the driver was traveling at 60 mph and the drunk driver was traveling at 70 mph) Result, a surgical request for a multi-level cervical fusion. There is nothing more frustrating when common sense tells you that an injury could not have resulted from the manner in which the accident occurred but there is a medical professional telling you that that same injury is work related.

Well, now there is a defense and that is in the use of a "Force Analysis". In the first case we provide the engineer with the height and weight of the worker and the height of a typical bail of hay. The engineer then is able to calculate the amount of force that would have been transferred from the worker’s feet to his neck and compare that to the amount of force the Federal Government Injury Standards say would cause an injury. The same is true with the auto accident. The engineer calculates the weight of both vehicles and the speed of both vehicles and determines the amount of force that the worker driving the truck would have felt. In the bale of hay case there were mere "ounces" of force that would have been felt and in the auto claim; there was a "change in force" of 5 mph. In both, there was insufficient force to cause ANY injury!