Lifting 400-lb Woman, Other Heavy Items, Caused Firefighter's Physical Trauma

Blufton, SC (WorkersCompensation.com) – In South Carolina, an employee can obtain worker’s compensation benefits when an injury results from the cumulative effects of repetitive events that traumatized the body. The firefighter in Thompson v. Bluffton Township Fire District, No. 2022-UP-437 (S.C. Ct. App. 12/07/22) established a compensable injury by, in part, pointing to the many times he lifted heavy items over several years with a fire department.

The 31-year-old firefighter sought compensation for his back injury, which he claimed was the result of repetitive trauma. Both the commissioner and the appellate panel found he did not establish a repetitive trauma injury under section 42-1-172 of the state’s worker’s compensation statute. 

The firefighter began working for the station in 2013. He started experiencing lower back pain in 2014, and, over the next two years, went to see many healthcare providers for treatment. 

He didn’t take time off from work. Instead, he said, he did what “a firefighter would have done; would have toughened up, got through it. I did my job." 

By 2017, he was telling his captain that his back pain was affecting his ability to do his job, A February 2017 MRI showed he had a bulging disc, disc degeneration, and nerve impingement in his lower back. He eventually experienced bowel and bladder control issues related to the conditions. 

It was hard do say what caused the pain–at least, according to the commission and appellate panel—although it might have been the time he helped lift a 400-pound woman off the floor of her home, the many times he lifted 75-pound ladders, the times he pulled 100-pound power units out of the back of a truck, or the countless times he lifted and carried heavy fire houses and other equipment. 

The commissioner and appellate panel denied the firefighter’s claim on the basis that he failed to prove both that his job duties as a fire-fighter were repetitive in nature and that the cause of his injury was repetitive trauma. They also reasoned that the treating physician who linked the back injury to repetitive trauma could not point to one primary reason for the injury but rather testified that the worker’s injury was caused by multiple factors. 

"Repetitive trauma injury," the court explained, means an injury which is gradual in onset and caused by the cumulative effects of repetitive traumatic events.

The court pointed out that the commission first erred by giving the word "repetitive" an overly narrow interpretation. It appeared that the commission equated activities that are repetitive with activities that must be performed on a near constant basis. But there is no such requirement; the firefighter did not have to show that his work included lifting the same heavy object in the same way throughout each shift, the court said. It was sufficient that the firefighter established that he lifted heavy objects as part of his job on a routine basis. 

The court also rejected the commission’s conclusion concerning the firefighter’s doctor. The doctor’s testimony, the court found, established a direct causal relationship between the conditions under which the firefighter performed his work and the injury. The firefighter’s repeating lifting of heavy objects and people caused his disc protrusion, nerve impingement, and bowel and bladder issues. 

The court reversed and remanded the case.

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