Workplace injuries and illnesses were behind 146,700 serious workers’ compensation claims across Australia in a single year. That averages more than 400 a day. A serious claim only gets counted once the worker loses at least a full working week, so that total leaves out every sprain, cut, and burn someone walks off before knock-off. Whatever your job, the person who treats you in the first few minutes is almost never a paramedic. It is whoever happens to be standing closest.
Sprains, Strains, and Back Injuries
Body stressing includes strain from lifting, pushing, pulling, and repetitive tasks, and it accounts for 34.5% of the national total of workers compensation entitlements. That makes it the largest single cause and most common type of workplace injuries or illness in every major occupation group.
Musculoskeletal injuries are the damage to someone’s muscles, tendons, ligaments, and spinal discs. More often than not, they’re caused by wear and tear on the body over time, rather than a single accident. When this is the case there is no first aid answer. That worker needs an incident report lodged, a doctor’s assessment, and time to recover.
When these injuries are sudden, get the worker to stop the task they are doing straight away, then support their injured limb or their back in whatever position hurts least. Apply a cold pack wrapped in a cloth to the injury for up to 20 minutes to ease pain in the first day, and raise their limb if swelling develops.
Cuts, Lacerations, and Bleeding
Cuts and open wounds are recorded in 13% of work-related injuries, and much of that is caused by hand tools, blades, sheet metal, and broken glass. Bleeding is the point where workplace injuries can become time-critical.
Put gloves on before you touch anyone who is bleeding. Press firmly against the wound with a clean pad or dressing, and keep pressing without lifting to check. If blood soaks through, add a second pad on top of the first and keep the pressure on. Raise their arm or leg above their heart if the injury allows it, and lay them down if they look pale or say they feel faint.
Call triple zero if the bleeding does not slow within ten minutes, if blood spurts in time with their pulse, or if the wound gapes open. Where something is embedded in the wound, such as a blade or a shard of glass, leave it in place and pack padding around it.
Fractures and Broken Bones
A broken bone is not always obvious. Pain from a stable break eases once the person stops moving. You should suspect a fracture when someone has pain directly over a bone, swelling, bruising, an odd angle to their limb, or an inability to use it the way they normally would.
Leave the person where they are unless danger forces them to move. Support their injury in the position you found it to stop it moving, then place a cold pack over the area with cloth between the pack and their skin. Do not try to straighten a limb, and do not push a bone back under their skin. Call triple zero for any suspected break.
Slips, Trips, and Falls
Falls, slips, and trips are ranked second among the causes of serious claims. Many of these workplace injuries are caused by wet floors, trailing leads, uneven surfaces, and cluttered work areas. The consequences scale with height; a trip on a level floor tends to end in a sprained wrist, while a drop from a ladder or a scaffold plank can end in a fractured spine.
Do not help a fallen worker straight back onto their feet. Ask them to stay still while you find out what hurts as standing up on a fracture or a damaged spine makes both worse. Ask whether they have pain in their neck or their back, whether they felt anything give way, and whether they can move their fingers and toes.
If they fell from a height, if they landed on their head or their back, or if they cannot tell you what happened, steady their head and neck with your hands and call triple zero. Keep them warm where they lie until the ambulance arrives.
Head Injuries and Concussions
The signs of a head injury can take hours to develop, so what you see at the moment of impact tells you little. A concussion happens when a knock, a jolt, or a heavy landing shakes someone’s brain inside their skull. They do not need to lose consciousness for it to have happened. Watch them for confusion, slurred speech, repeated questions, memory loss around the event, headaches that worsen, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, unsteadiness on their feet, or unusual drowsiness.
Call triple zero if they lose consciousness even briefly, if they vomit more than once, if they have a seizure, if clear fluid or blood comes from their nose or their ears, if one of their pupils is larger than the other, or if their symptoms get worse over the first hour. Workers on blood-thinning medication need medical assessment after any knock to their head, even one that seems trivial.
Burns
Burns at work come from hot oil, steam, exhausts, welding arcs, sun exposure, and chemicals. The answer for almost all of them is the same.
Remove rings, watches, and clothing from the area before it swells, unless fabric has stuck to their skin, in which case leave it alone. Once cooling is finished, cover the burn loosely with cling film laid over the area rather than wrapped around a limb. Do not use ice, do not break blisters, and do not apply creams, ointments, butter, or toothpaste. Cool the burn with cool running water for at least 20 minutes. Starting immediately gives the best result, though cooling still helps if it begins up to three hours after the burn.
For chemical burns, rush off any dry powder first, then flush the area with running water for at least 20 minutes and up to an hour, until the stinging stops. Call the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26, and also all triple zero for burns to someone’s face, hands, feet, or genitals, for burns that circle a limb, for any burn larger than a 20 cent coin, and for anyone who has breathed in smoke or steam.
Electric Shock
Rushing in to help someone who has taken an electric shock can put you in hospital alongside them. Grabbing anyone still in contact with a live conductor puts you in danger. Switch the power off first. If you cannot do so, do not approach the person. Where the voltage is low and the supply cannot be switched off quickly, you can separate them from the source using a dry non-conductive object such as a wooden broom handle.
Once the scene is safe, check whether they respond to your voice and to a firm squeeze of their shoulders, then look and listen for normal breathing. If they are not breathing normally, CPR and send someone for the nearest defibrillator. If they are breathing, roll them onto their side with their head tilted slightly back, so their airway stays open and any vomit drains away.
Every electric shock needs medical assessment, including the ones where the worker insists they feel fine. Their heart rhythm can be disturbed hours after the event, and their internal organs and deeper tissue can be damaged.
Heat Illnesses
Hot workplaces are common and heat illness affects roofers, warehouse staff, kitchen crews, and anyone wearing protective equipment that traps their body heat. Heat exhaustion and heatstroke are two points on one scale rather than two separate conditions.
A worker with heat exhaustion sweats heavily, feels weak, dizzy, and nauseated, has headaches, and their temperature climbs toward 39°C. Move them into shade or air conditioning, lie them flat, and take off any protective equipment or tight clothing. Cool them fast by immersing them in cold water from their neck down where a bath or tub is available, or use towels dipped in iced water and changed frequently, along with cold packs against their neck, under their arms, and at their groin.
Heat stroke takes over once their body stops managing its own temperature, their temperature passes 40°C, and their thinking goes with it, showing as confusion, slurred speech, aggression, seizures, or collapse. Call triple zero for anyone showing signs and stay with them. Give cool water only to a worker who is fully alert and able to swallow safely.
First Aid Training for Workplace Injuries
Every Australian workplace has a duty under work health and safety law to provide first aid equipment, access to it, and an adequate number of trained workers. Common workplace injuries in Australia are predictable enough that we can teach every one of them in a day before you return to work. Trained first aiders shorten the time between an incident and correct treatment, and that time affects how much time off work follows. Enrol in first aid training to put someone on your floor who knows what to do.
FAQs
What Items Should Be in a Workplace First Aid Kit?
Safe Work Australia recommends that a baseline kit contains adhesive dressing strips, sterile wound dressings in three sizes, non-adherent dressings, conforming and triangular bandages, disposable nitrile gloves, saline sachets, scissors, tweezers, adhesive tape, an emergency rescue blanket, a resuscitation face shield, and a notebook and pen.
How Bad Does an Injury Need to Be to Make a Workers Compensation Claim?
There is no severity threshold. Anyone injured at work can lodge a claim under the scheme, including a claim for medical expenses alone with no time off work at all.
How Common Are Work-Related Fatalities?
188 workers died from traumatic injuries at Australian workplaces in 2024, a rate of 1.3 deaths per 100,000 workers. Four in five of those deaths occurred in just six industries, spanning agriculture, forestry and fishing, transport, postal and warehousing, manufacturing, construction, health care and health care and social assistance, and public administration and safety
