Ladder falls a big cause of workplace injuries. Here's how an Ontario man climbed back from a head injury
CBC
When he first picked himself up off the ground after falling from a ladder on a job site six years ago, Mark Foster thought at worst he might be a bit sore for a few days.
Though he’d smacked his head after tumbling from a height of four metres, the then 44-year-old from Ingersoll, Ont., initially saw no reason to believe he’d suffered an injury that would soon have life-changing consequences.
“I didn’t lose consciousness or anything,” he told CBC News. “I got up and I brushed myself off. I set the ladder back up — got back to work.”
Ladder-related accidents continue to be a significant cause of workplace injuries in Canada.
Last year alone in Ontario, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) reported 242 injury claims related to ladder accidents and injuries. That works out to one injury every working day of the month. On average, those injuries accounted for an average of 29 lost work days per person.
Those stats only include injuries that led to WSIB claims; they don't account for ladder injuries and deaths that happen at home.
Public Health Ontario included falls from scaffolding and/or ladders in its emergency room visit statistics from 2019, the same year Foster was hurt.
Those falls led to 20 deaths, 88,000 emergency department visits and 1,024 hospitalizations.
At the time of his injury, Foster, a master electrician also trained to work on industrial refrigeration systems, was installing metal electrical conduit in the ceiling of a commercial building in Paris, Ont.
It was a standard assignment for the experienced contractor who frequently travelled as far as the Quebec border and Thunder Bay for what is highly specialized, technical work installing air-handling systems in commercial and residential buildings.
It wasn’t until after Foster had finished the installation that day and had packed his tools to head home that a co-worker noticed Foster didn’t look well.
“He said something looks funny and looks pale about me,” said Foster. “I told him what happened and how far I fell, and he said, 'Maybe there’s nothing wrong, but let’s get you to a hospital to make sure.'”
During that hospital visit, a CT scan showed he had a cavernoma in his brain, an abnormal cluster of thin-walled blood vessels. Some people with cavernomas live normal, healthy lives, unaware they even have them. Foster's cavernoma wasn't related to the fall, though it would become significant in the weeks and months after the injury.
He was released from hospital feeling OK and with instructions to see a specialist. In the days that followed his injury, Foster started to experience headaches, light-headedness and brain fog.
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