by Recently I have been thinking about how I became interested in studying the field of law and opening my own practice. I came into the field around 15 years ago, now, and the incident that sparked it (no pun intended) was a horrific accident involving a faulty transformer on a job site.
I happened to work in a field that was tangential to construction and was out on an in-field installation of one of my company’s products near Waco. I was responsible for setting up a control system for the PA and lighting in a stadium that served as both an auction house for cattle and other farm animals and a rodeo arena.
The job was botched from the start. We had shipped a number of parts and redundancies ahead of my departure, most of which had gone missing in transit. We had one large server that would serve as the controller for the entire system that arrived on time but was subsequently left out on the track and ran over by a truck.
A two-day job turned into a three-day, then a five-day, and soon I had been out for over a week as each phase of the installation found a new way to go wrong. I arrived on Monday morning, expecting to be home by Wednesday night, and instead found myself building a new server from parts found at a local Best Buy through the weekend.
The first day of the second week was when disaster struck. I was putting together the new server rack that would house the controller when I got the call that there was an accident at the arena. I was able to see the smoke from the crappy hotel nearby.
While working on rewiring the electrical system to accommodate the new electrical equipment, a faulty transformer had arced and blew up with a couple of the electricians trapped inside the shed. One miraculously made it out unharmed, but the other was not so lucky.
His life was never to be the same. He lost a hand that had been holding on to the metal handrail. The flesh on most of his body was burned, and his face looked like a melted candle. He would lose both ears, his nose, and one of his eyes, their only remainder the small slits kept open by doctors.
The installation was put on indefinite hiatus and I returned home a contemplative man the next day. The electrician who was injured was only 25 years old, and his life was, essentially, ended by some manufacturing defect or cut corner somewhere along the line.
It taught me that things can end and go awry very quickly and easily unless someone is held to account. That, to me, is the real purpose of personal injury attorneys – serving some justice to those whose negligence or malice caused harm to the populace and altering the incentive structure to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that those kinds of accidents can’t happen here, either – construction sites are the most common location for workplace-related injuries and accidents to take place, even here in California. If you or someone you know has been involved in a workplace accident and is in need of a personal injury attorney, we heavily recommend contacting Villasenor Law Offices, the San Diego law firm that’s been helping victims all over the county for decades.
Whether your injury is as life-changing as the young electrician I worked with in my youth or a temporary sprain preventing you from working, Villasenor’s diligent team will ensure that you get the restitution you deserve. Give them a call:
Villasenor Law Offices
+18587077771
12396 World Trade Dr Suite 211, San Diego, CA 92128
