Personal protection equipment (PPE) is very important in the workplace. In most cases, your employer has to give you certain types of equipment to keep you safe. Examples include hard hats, dust masks, gloves, high visibility vests, eye protection and much more.
If your employer doesn’t give you any PPE and you get injured on the job, you may need to seek workers’ comp benefits. But there are also situations where you may be given PPE that is not correct for the task that you’re performing. This could still lead to complications, injuries or illness.
Asbestos dust masks
One example of this is if you’re working around asbestos. You need to be given a mask so that you don’t inhale the microscopic particles, which can lead to a type of cancer called mesothelioma.
But if your employer just gave you a cheap dust mask, made for working in a woodshop, then it’s not going to help with asbestos particles at all. They are simply too small to be filtered out by this type of mask. You need to have a P100 mask that is rated specifically for asbestos.
In other words, your employer may claim that they gave you everything you needed to stay safe, but you could still face severe levels of exposure and develop an illness like mesothelioma in the future. This could be an accidental oversight by your employer, not something done maliciously, but the negative ramifications for you are still the same.
If you have been diagnosed with a serious illness that is related to your occupation, then it’s important for you to look into all of the legal steps you can take moving forward.