Cold Stress Work Injuries

In the summer in Maryland, there are often conversations about heat-related stress and heat-related injuries that can harm workers who are primarily outdoors. Heat-related injuries can also impact certain types of indoor workers regardless of the season, such as those who work in kitchens or those who work in certain types of factory environments. While risks associated with heat stress are somewhat known, cold stress, or cold-related injuries, tend to be discussed much less often. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the US Department of Labor (DOL), wind chill warnings and wind chill advisories throughout autumn, winter, and spring months in parts of the country can put workers at risk of injury.

Although Maryland has a more temperate climate than some states across the US, it nonetheless sees its share of cold and freezing temperatures, and it is important for employees to understand the risks and signs of cold stress work injuries.

Learning More About Cold Stress 

What is cold stress, and how can it cause harm? According to OSHA, the term “cold stress” refers to a situation where the body’s skin temperature is driven down, and ultimately the internal body temperature also declines. OSHA clarifies that, “when the body is unable to warm itself, serious cold-related illnesses and injuries may occur, and permanent tissue damage and death may result.”

Cold stress does not necessarily have a single definition in terms of specific temperatures or wind speeds that produce the possibility of it. Rather, the factors for cold stress depend on the region of the country, and the term is used to point to factors that increase the risk of injury due to exposure to low temperatures based on workers’ acclimation in a particular area.

The factors that affect the likelihood of cold stress in places like Maryland can include, for example, near-freezing or just-freezing temperatures if workers’ bodies are not acclimated to those temperatures. When there is an increased risk of wetness and dampness, even from sweat, coupled with cold temperatures, the body can lose a significant amount of heat.

Common Types of Cold Stress Injuries 

There are four common types of cold stress injuries that tend to affect outdoor workers in colder months and that can be prevented with appropriate safety precautions. Those injuries include the following:

• Immersion or trench foot, which results from “prolonged exposure to wet and cold conditions”;
• Frostbite, which happens when skin and tissues freeze, and it can result in permanent damage or amputation;
• Hypothermia, which happens when the body’s internal temperature drops below 95 degrees due to exposure to cold temperatures; and
• Chilblains, which is a type of “painful inflammation of small blood vessels in the skin” and can happen in temperatures just above freezing and up to 60 degrees.

Contact a Maryland Workers’ Compensation Attorney 

Employees who sustain injuries on the job, whether their work requires them to be indoors in office environments or outdoors where they are exposed to very low or very high temperatures that can cause harm, it may be possible to obtain workers’ compensation benefits. It will be important to discuss your work injury with an experienced Maryland workers’ compensation lawyer at the Law Offices of Steinhardt, Siskind and Lieberman, LLC to find out about your eligibility for benefits. Contact us today to learn more about filing a workers’ compensation claim in Maryland.

Source:

osha.gov/winter-weather/cold-stress#:~:text=When%20the%20body%20is%20unable,Stress%20Safety%20and%20Health%20Guide