I was injured at work: what to do in the first days

In the days right after an injury you think about getting better, and that is how it should be. But those days leave traces — or they don't — and months later it is exactly those traces that make the difference between a claim that closes well and one that drags on.

You don't need to do everything at once. You just need not to lose what can't be recovered later.

First of all: get seen

The medical certificate is the document everything else is built on. It is worth going to A&E even when the pain seems bearable: many injuries show how serious they are only hours or days later, and a late visit always raises the question of whether the damage really started there.

When you describe what happened, be precise and complete. It is the first time the sequence of events is put in writing.

Tell your employer

The injury must be reported to your employer without waiting. It is the employer who has to send the report to INAIL, and to do so they need the details of your certificate.

If the company delays, or says there is no need to open a claim, that is a warning sign: the report is an obligation, not a courtesy.

Keep what won't be there later

The things that disappear quickly are almost always the same:

• photographs of the place as it was that day, before it is tidied up
• the names of whoever was there, even just passing by
• the equipment or device involved, and the condition it was in
• any earlier reports about the same problem, even verbal ones

A note written the same day, with the date and names, is worth more than a precise memory six months later.

Don't stop at the first certificate

Follow-up visits, physiotherapy, later tests: each of these documents how the injury developed. They are the proof of how long the trouble lasted and what remained.

Costs count too: treatment, travel, prescription charges, care. Keeping the receipts costs nothing and it helps.

What INAIL recognises is not everything

INAIL's compensation follows tables that are the same for everyone and covers only some items. If the injury happened because of your employer's responsibility, you may be owed more than you have already received.

That is why it is worth talking about it even when the INAIL claim seems to have gone well.

When to ask

Sooner is better, for a practical reason before a legal one: places change, people change jobs, documents get lost. The deadlines exist and must be met, but time works against reconstructing the facts long before they expire.

A phone call to understand whether the case makes sense commits you to nothing, and often it only serves to hear that everything is fine as it is.