Personal Injury
Investigation and Analysis

WERC forensic engineers provide sound engineering of personal injury accidents beginning with detailed site investigation and documentation, and ending with well-documented reports and testimony as needed. Our team of biomechanical, mechanical, structural, architectural, and metallurgical engineering specialists explore every possibility with respect to injury causation.

Slips, Trips and Falls

Injury accidents occur on stairways, ramps, parking lots and other areas. The cause of accidents are evaluated relative to identified defects or code conformance issues.

Machinery

WERC is skilled in the investigations of personal injury accidents involving machinery such as boilers and manufacturing equipment. WERC evaluates maintenance, vibration, wear, operator use, training, instructions, warnings and associated issues relative to a failure or injury.

Ladder Accidents

Ladder accidents often occur as the result of improper use or because the ladder is damaged. One common accident scenario involves a fall from a stepladder. After the fall, the ladder leg is often bent. Our challenge is to determine if the bent leg resulted from the accident or actually caused it.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Accidents

Accidents involving collisions between vehicles and pedestrians or bicyclists present a special challenge because of the weight disparity. Point of impact can be determined using experimental data and engineering analysis. Locations of various artifacts are often important in piecing together the sequence of events. The timing of signal lights, surfaces, intersection layouts, and weather conditions are issues that can be evaluated relative to an accident.

Various analytical techniques exploring issues such as skid marks, timing and human factors may be used to determine speed at defined points in a sequence leading up to an event. Speeds prior to skidding, at impact and vault can be chained together to develop relative speeds and speed profiles of the vehicle and the pedestrian or cyclist. Western also investigates accidents involving pedestrians and/or bicycles where motorized vehicles are not involved.

Workman's Compensation

Workplace accidents are examined in relation to product safety as well usage practices and training. Code compliance is examined and OSHA regulations (if applicable) are analyzed in reference to the accident.  In cases where the cause of an injury is disputed, careful evaluation of operations and physical data may help in determining which version of a story is correct.

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