Report it, however small it looks, and get it written down the same day. The injuries that cause people real trouble years later are almost always the ones nobody recorded at the time, because a claim for an untreated, unreported injury is a claim you have to argue rather than file. Get medical attention, tell your employer, make sure it goes in the record, and write your own note of what happened while you still remember it. Here is the order, and who carries the responsibility.
The first few minutes
Make it safe if you can do so without putting yourself in it. Do not become the second casualty. That is not a slogan, it is the most common way one accident becomes two.
Get help. Call the site first aiders, and for anything serious call emergency services rather than debating it. Nobody has ever been criticized later for over-reacting to a head injury or a fall.
Tell your foreman or supervisor straight away. Even if you are fine. Even if it was your fault. Even if it was a near miss and nothing was hurt.
Leave the scene alone if you can. Photographs before anything is moved or tidied are worth a great deal later, and a site that has been cleared before anyone looked at it is a site where nobody can tell what happened.
Why you report the small ones
This is the part experienced people wish somebody had told them at twenty.
A strain, a small cut, a bang on the head with no obvious damage, or a near miss that hurt nobody feels like something not worth mentioning. Reporting it costs you nothing. Not reporting it can cost you a claim years later, because if a back injury or a hearing problem surfaces down the line, the first question is always whether there is a contemporaneous record of the incident that caused it.
Occupational illnesses are the sharpest version of this. Conditions like silicosis, hearing loss and work-related cancers appear years after the exposure and have other possible causes, so insurers fight them hard, and the claims that succeed are the ones with a documented history behind them. How do I claim workers' comp for an illness the job gave me? is what that looks like, and Your body is your livelihood. Protect it for the long haul. is why it matters.
Near misses are worth reporting for a different reason: the hazard that nearly got you is still there for the next person.
What your employer has to do
Record it. Employers with 11 or more employees in non-exempt industries keep an OSHA 300 log of recordable work injuries and illnesses, with a 301 report for each case and a 300A annual summary that gets certified and posted where workers can see it. Those records are kept for five years. Not everything goes on the log, but serious injuries do. OSHA recordkeeping: the 300 log and reporting a serious injury.
Report the serious ones to OSHA, on a clock. A work-related fatality must be reported within 8 hours, where the death occurs within 30 days of the incident. An in-patient hospitalization, an amputation, or the loss of an eye must be reported within 24 hours, with the hospitalization rule applying where it happens within 24 hours of the incident. Being kept only for observation or diagnostic tests does not count as an in-patient hospitalization.
Not punish you for reporting. Discouraging or penalizing injury reporting is not permitted, and retaliation for raising a safety concern or contacting OSHA is illegal under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act.
Workers' compensation, in one paragraph
Workers' comp pays for medical treatment and lost wages when you are hurt on the job, and it is a no-fault system: you do not have to show your employer did anything wrong, only that the injury arose out of your work. In exchange, the injured worker generally gives up the right to sue the employer. Every state except Texas requires an employer to carry it once they have even one employee. Workers' comp for contractors: what it covers and the traps.
Two things that catch people out:
Being paid on a 1099 does not settle the question. If you are really an employee in substance, calling you a subcontractor does not avoid comp, and state agencies look at how the relationship actually works rather than at the paperwork. If you are genuinely self-employed with no employees, the position is different and you need your own cover, because there is no comp behind you. 1099 vs W-2: which are you really? and 1099 or W-2? Worker Status Checker.
There are deadlines. Notifying your employer and filing a claim both have time limits set by your state, and they are shorter than people expect. Do not let a "see how it feels in a few weeks" become a missed window.
Who is responsible on a site with several companies on it
Most sites have more than one employer, and OSHA can cite several of them for the same hazardous condition. It applies a two-step test: first, which role does the employer fall into, and second, were its actions sufficient.
The four roles are:
- Creating, the employer that caused the hazard. It can be cited even when only other companies' workers were exposed to it.
- Exposing, the employer whose workers are exposed. If it cannot fix the hazard itself, it has to ask whoever created it to correct it, tell its own workers about it, and take reasonable alternative steps to protect them in the meantime.
- Correcting, the employer responsible for fixing it.
- Controlling, usually the general contractor, which has to exercise reasonable care to prevent and detect violations across the whole site, including hazards its subcontractors create.
A genuinely self-employed subcontractor with no employees cannot be cited directly by OSHA, because OSHA's authority is over employers, though a general contractor can require them by contract to follow the rules and can be cited for a hazard they create. The full test is in Who's on the hook for safety on a shared site?.
For a worker, the practical point is that a hazard created by another trade is still your business to report, and the fact that it is not your company's hazard does not mean nobody is responsible for it.
Write your own note, the same day
Whatever the site records, keep your own. It costs five minutes and it is the thing that makes a difference a year later:
- Date, time and exactly where.
- What you were doing and what happened, in your own words.
- Who was there and who you told.
- What you were wearing and using.
- Photographs, including of the scene and of any injury.
- Who you saw medically and when.
- Any symptom that develops afterwards, dated.
Incident and Near-Miss Report is a form for it, and Job File: What to Keep is the wider record-keeping habit.
If it was your fault
Report it anyway, immediately and completely. Trying to hide it is what turns a manageable incident into a serious problem, and everybody senior on a site has made mistakes and knows it. What ends careers is concealment, not error.
If an OSHA inspector arrives
An incident can bring an inspection, and you have rights during one. Workers can be interviewed, and you can speak to an inspector. An OSHA inspection: what happens and your rights is the process, and OSHA citations and penalties: how they work is what follows for the employer.
Where to go next in this section
- Site orientation and safety training: what you must be told, where the reporting route should have been explained.
- Your rights in the first months on the job, for retaliation and everything beyond safety.
- Your first day on site: what to expect and what to ask, for the questions that prevent this.
- Your rights on an unsafe site, for stopping it before it happens.
- Struggling? You're not weak, and you're not alone., because an incident is not only a physical event.
- I got hooked on painkillers after an injury. How do I get help without losing my job?, which is a common and quiet path after an injury.
Common questions
Should I report a minor injury at work?
Yes, always, and the same day. A strain, a small cut or a bang on the head feels like something not worth mentioning, and reporting it costs you nothing. Not reporting it can cost you a claim years later, because if a back or hearing problem surfaces down the line the first question asked is whether there is a contemporaneous record of the incident behind it. That is sharpest for occupational illnesses like silicosis and hearing loss, which appear years after exposure and are fought hard by insurers, and the claims that succeed are the documented ones. Report near misses too, because the hazard is still there for the next person.
What has to be reported to OSHA after an accident?
A work-related fatality must be reported within 8 hours, and that applies where the death occurs within 30 days of the incident. An in-patient hospitalization, an amputation or the loss of an eye must be reported within 24 hours, with the hospitalization rule applying where it happens within 24 hours of the incident. Being kept only for observation or diagnostic tests does not count as an in-patient hospitalization. Separately, employers with 11 or more employees in non-exempt industries keep the OSHA 300 log of recordable injuries and illnesses, with a 301 for each case and a certified 300A annual summary.
Can I be fired for reporting an injury?
No. Discouraging or penalizing injury reporting is not permitted, and it is illegal under Section 11(c) of the OSH Act for an employer to fire, demote, cut the hours of or otherwise punish a worker for raising a safety concern or contacting OSHA. If it happens anyway there is a retaliation complaint route through OSHA, and the window for it is short, so act quickly rather than waiting to see whether things settle down. Keeping your own dated record of what you reported and who you told is what makes that kind of complaint straightforward rather than a matter of two conflicting memories.
Who is responsible if another company's crew creates the hazard that hurts me?
Potentially several of them. OSHA can cite more than one employer on a shared site for a single hazardous condition, sorting each into creating, exposing, correcting or controlling and then asking whether its actions were sufficient. The employer that created a hazard can be cited even when only other companies' workers were exposed. Your own employer, as the exposing employer, has to ask whoever created it to fix it, tell you about it, and take reasonable alternative steps to protect you in the meantime. So a hazard made by another trade is still something to report rather than to work around.
What should I write down after an incident?
Everything, the same day, in your own words. The date, time and exact location, what you were doing and what happened, who was present and who you told, what PPE and equipment you were using, photographs of the scene before it is tidied and of any injury, who you saw medically and when, and then any symptom that develops afterwards with the date it started. Keep it yourself rather than relying only on the site's record. A year later it is the difference between a claim you can file and a claim you have to argue from memory.
The honest bit
- The OSHA reporting deadlines, the 300 log thresholds and the multi-employer roles are federal positions as recorded in this site's own safety guides. State-plan states can have their own requirements, and the exemptions by industry and employer size do apply.
- Workers' comp is state law and it varies a great deal, including notification and filing deadlines, which are shorter than most people expect. Your state is the authority.
- Every state except Texas requires workers' comp once an employer has employees, and the position for a genuinely self-employed person with no employees is different.
- Nothing here tells you whether a particular injury will be accepted as work-related. That is a question for your state's system and, where the injury is serious, for a professional.
- This is general guidance, not legal or medical advice.
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Templates you might need
Need help pricing your work? Read Section 14: Pricing Your Work - day rates, job prices and how to stop underselling yourself.
Finished your apprenticeship? Read our guide: After Your Apprenticeship - the stuff nobody teaches you in college.
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