Injured worker warns students of the perils in summer work
Nick Perry knows what it’s like to be sidelined and robbed of his youth.
The Victoria native is doing whatever he can to make sure no other young person has to go through what he has endured.
As high school students start counting the hours before summer and graduation, Perry has been on a high-school speaking tour reminding students that when it comes to summer jobs they have rights and they need to keep safety top of mind.
“This is about keeping the message fresh because we can get into situations where complacency sets in if we have repetitive jobs, and we start to think we can do it with our eyes closed,” said Perry.
He said that kind of thinking can get passed from worker to worker at any company until disaster strikes. Perry knows what he is talking about. In 2001, when he was 19 and fresh out of Belmont Secondary, Perry was injured in an accident at a lumber yard. Several sheets of medium-density fibreboard flew off a forklift and hit him, one of them nearly severing his spine.
He spent 13 1⁄2 hours in surgery, more than three weeks trying to get the hang of life in a wheelchair, then three months rehabilitating at G.F. Strong in Vancouver, where he found the strength to walk out on a walker. Three years later, he was done with crutches. Now the only visible sign of his injury and disability is a limp when he walks.
For Perry, the experience drove home the need for more information and support for worker safety, and eventually turned him into a WorkSafe B.C. ambassador willing to speak to any school, company or organization about the importance of keeping young people and all workers safe on the job.
“At the end of the day, we all want to go home,” said Perry. “Safety may not be exciting, but it is important ... it can save young people’s lives.” The message is clearly still needed. WorkSafe B.C. said between 2012 and 2016, about 33,000 young workers were injured, 3,600 of them seriously. The young-worker injury rate remained at 2.2 claims per 100 workers between 2012-2015 before dropping to 2.1 in 2016. The injury rate for young male workers is at 2.7 claims per 100 workers.
Perry said he understood very quickly the importance of on-the-job safety. In fact, less than a year after his accident he did an interview with the Times Colonist in which he said: “Young people need to look out for themselves ... because no one else will.”
Perry, now 35 and the father of a two-year-old girl, argued then and now that many workplace accidents could be prevented if young employees were more knowledgeable about their jobs and felt comfortable in asking questions of their employers.
That’s why he likes to speak to both schools and companies, in order to bridge the communication gap between employers and employees.
He’s determined to keep doing it, as he realized it’s been one of the good things to come from his accident.
“The one thing I could do was support health and safety,” he said. “Because I went through this, now I’m here. I’m lucky to be here and I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen to people in the future. Don’t jeopardize your life for five minutes at work.”