Worker’s compensation can be a God send to those of us who have experienced an unfortunate accident while on the job. Usually its a trip, fall, or muscle injury. However, there have been quite bizzare claims over the past few years that you just won’t believe. Most are due to pure stupidity and some are just scoundrels trying to work the system, but all of them are sure to have you scratching your head in disbelief.

Man Sustains Injury from Tug Of War with Bailing Machine and Truck

This would only happen out in Montana and on a farm, non-the-less. Country boys are notorious for, well, for lack of a better term, doing idiotic things with their trucks. This fellow, after a piece of metal got lodged into a bailing machine, decided it would be best to try and dislodge it by attaching one end of a chain to his truck and the other to the aforementioned piece of metal. Whilst probably shouting “YEE HAW”, he sped his truck forward causing the chain to run out of slack thus causing his truck to lift up off the ground, apparently causing the employees head to snap backwards causing clavicle injuries. He was denied medical benefits because, to summarize, he’s an idiotic redneck showoff who probably just aggravated a previously existing condition.

Woman Trips over Dog While Working from Home, Wins Workers Comp Claim

Mary Sandberg, an Oregon woman, whilst walking to her garage to replace fabric samples for her work as a decorator at JC Penney’s, tripped over her family dog, causing her to break her wrist. She was first denied compensation because she was working out of her home, a location that was outside of her employer’s control. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the decision concluding that her home was sometimes her work environment and she was injured doing a work-related task. Maybe next time she should just watch where she’s walking.

Man Smokes Pot, Gets Mauled when Feeding Grizzly Bears

Montana seems to be a place full of really bright people, as two of the workplace injuries on this list are from there. Brock Hopkins, an employee at an adventure park decided it would be a fantastic idea to blaze it up before going to work that day, where he feeds grizzly bears. He was mauled, because, you know, they are grizzly bears. He was awarded a compensation of $65,000 after the workers compensation court ruled that he was in fact an employee, despite the employer stating that he was a volunteer and that grizzly bears are “equal opportunity maulers”, not caring about whether or not someone is doing their best Tommy Chong impersonation.

Man Busts Hip While Trying to Retrieve Chips from Vending Machine

Clinton Dwyer, an employee at Circuit City, tried to retrieve a bag of chips from a break room vending machine for a female coworker, resulting in him breaking his hip. He couldn’t resist hockey checking the machine to impress the damsel in distress and thus fractured his hip because he apparently has the bones of a 90 year old man and was awarded workers compensation after the court ruled that he was leaving his work duties to come to the aid of a female coworker, applying the ‘Good Samaritan’ doctrine.

Aussie Woman Gets Injured During Violent Sex in Hotel Room

This is probably the most bizarre workplace injury I found out of all the news stories I could find on the internet. In 2007, an Australian woman got injured mid-coitus with a lamp straight to the face whilst trying to achieve powerful orgasms by inserting a yoni egg from loveballs and then reenact scenes from 50 Shades of Grey. She was on a business trip in a hotel room paid by her employer which happened to be the Australian government. The Australian government rejected her claim on the grounds of sex “not [being] an ordinary incident of an overnight stay.” This ruling was overturned by a federal judge on the grounds of “no approval, express or implied, of the respondent’s conduct was required.” Meaning that she could have performed black market kidney surgery on herself causing her to suffer major blood loss and her employer would have to pay workers comp simply because they paid for the hotel stay.

After reading about all of these unusual, stupid, and even sexual workplace incidents, I cannot even fathom how they were able to beat their employers with their workers compensation claims. My conclusion: people are weird, and do weird and stupid things while working, and will do anything to get money from their employers for their own negligence.

This article was brought to you by Amanda Rickert. Amanda is a native Floridian learning to endure the cold of a Michigan winter as she pursues her passion of small scale farming. She is also a professional writer for companies like eCompliance. To learn more about Amanda, check out her Google+.