The field of construction has numerous risks that your typical job will not have. You work constantly around heavy vehicles, industrial equipment and potentially dangerous tools that weigh more than most people can lift.
Because of that, you are at a higher risk than the average person for a crush-related incident or injury.
What affects crush injury impacts?
As Medline Plus states, crush injuries have the potential to create lifelong issues in a victim. The speed at which you heal and how well your recovery goes depends on several factors, including your physical health, how long you got pinned by the item, how much force, speed and weight it fell or drove over you with, and how long it took you to get proper medical care.
Biggest impacts of injuries
However, no matter how quickly you get help, you will likely suffer from numerous side effects. For example, amputation remains one of the biggest potential risks and a likely outcome of crush injuries to the extremities. When you do not get blood and oxygen flowing to the outer limbs quickly enough, the tissue there will rapidly necrotize and may become infected within hours. Sometimes, the damage from the initial crush injury itself may render the limb unsalvageable.
On the other hand, if you suffer from a full-body crush injury or an injury to the trunk, you may have to worry about organ failure. With the changes in blood pressure brought on by crush injuries, it is possible for organs to being to fail within hours. On top of that, in either case, you may suffer from sepsis, or an infection of the blood that can prove fatal without treatment.