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Snap! Next, there was the sound of oozing fire; as if lava was slowly creeping in. Chase Smith tried to muffle his scream, which only made it sound more terrifying. Chase was working at a fast food restaurant. He was simply moving a hot pan of chili out of the microwave; something he and all of his coworkers have down thousands of times. But the chili pan snapped, spilling chili all over the ground; and his body. He took a step forward, trying to get away from the mess he created. However, he only managed to make matters worse. He stepped directly onto the slippy chili and fell, hitting his head on the ground, hard. At this point, us coworkers were piecing together what happened while trying to get to Chase’s side for aide. Chase was not responding to his name. He remained on the ground, the only moments he showed were slowly rotating. We could see the chili burning into his flesh. We called the hospital; then we called our boss.

Chase ended up having three-degree burns and a brain injury. I wanted to investigate this question to help future employees from what happened to Chase. Despite the simplicity of the question, it’s rather complicated. At first, I thought a straightforward “How To” would be able to answer the question. Yet, I believe that with injuries, specifically, head injuries, there is a lot more situation type ordeals that should be looked at. But what do I know? I am not a business owner, doctor, or has had a head injury. So the first step has to research.

According to Can, I Collect Workers’ Compensation for Traumatic Brain Injury? from ankinlaw.com, there are two types of head injury. One that affects the nerves outside of the head area and one that affects the nerves inside the head: the brain. The one that affects the nerves outside of the head area is called Cervical radiculopathy. Or in other words, Cervical radiculopathy is when the nerves around the spine are damaged. On the body, there are the cervical vertebrae, which make up the spine. All of those circular bones that create the spine, the individual bones are called cervical vertebrae. The nerves that are around those bones are sensitive. If compressed, that cervical radiculopathy can occur. Based off where the compressed nerves were, is where the damage is done.

If the nerves were compressed at the top of the spine, then that is where the damage will be. There are some common symptoms of cervical radiculopathy.  The first one is a painfulness throughout the body. That includes pain spreading through the arm, neck chest, upper back and possibly the shoulders. Another symptom is a lack of coordination. Situations such as not being about to catch a ball are an example of lack of coordination that might be experienced with cervical radiculopathy. And the last out of the most common symptoms are lack of muscle performance. This could be your muscles beginning to weaken or becoming numb for periods of time. The weakness and numbness and or tingling would most likely be in the hands, or more specifically, the fingers.

The one that affects the nerves inside the head, or the brain, is called traumatic brain injuries. Traumatic brain injuries a different than cervical radiculopathy, as the symptoms are usually less obvious but the damage is extremely harmful. An example of brain injuries are concussions; you might have heard of these concussions from watching football. Another example is Secondary Impact Syndrome or SIS for short. SIS can lead to the brain massively swelling. It could impact the brain as a whole which impacts attributes such as emotions and a mental mindset. And, the most dangerous, a decrease or loss of blood flow to the brain. With a loss of blood flow to the brain, it creates more problems. The common ones are damaged brain functions such as thinking, remembering, and reasoning. What makes brain injuries so harmful is its ability to remain in the brain. Moreover, traumatic brain injuries could create depression, fatigue, and sleep problem. These can cause a lifelong medical problem, costing the worker or the business thousands of dollars.  

Now having background information is important; yet, it does not provide an answer to the question How can businesses lessen the risk of personal injury to either employees or customers? The way to answer that understands what can cause cervical radiculopathy and traumatic brain injury. Understanding what causes the injuries could lead to how to prevent it from happening.

For cervical radiculopathy, the damage could be done from a number of incidents. Pressure from a herniated disc is a common way for the damage to occur. It could be from a named illness as well; illustrated by degenerative bone disease and arthritis. Another possibility is from an accident. If there was trauma to the nerve roots than cervical radiculopathy is potential. For traumatic brain injuries, the accidents are more painful. Falling is a common factor for causing traumatic brain injuries; falling merchandise, falling off of a ladder, falling to the ground, falling from a building, having objects fall on you, etcetera. Especially for a concussion, it could a sudden strike, jolt, bump and/or blow to the head. This includes motor vehicle accidents, sports injuries and, of course, falls. For job-related nerve injuries, falling, car, and machinery accidents could cause either traumatic brain injuries or cervical radiculopathy.

Looking into the casings for traumatic brain injuries and cervical radiculopathy, there is a big theme. Mostly it is from an accident, or from falling. So what can a business learn from this? There is one simple answer: precautions. Businesses need to think of how accidents could happen, and then create a list of precautions to prevent it from happening. It might seem pointless and a waste of time at first, but all options will be cheaper than paying medical bills of an injured employee. And when starting a new company, bosses do not have to try to think about all of the possible accidents at first. It is import to listen to the employees and the managers. Those are the people clocking in and out of the business and usually would know what could, and potentially, what has gone wrong.

Chase Smith had a lot of damages, he fell and had mechanize fallen on him, or in this case, the food fell on him. The company is at fault. What the Chase’s parents did not know was how this happened before. Nearly a year earlier, a 28 year old was doing the same act, taking chilli out of the microwave, and the tube broke. The difference is only a small part of the tube broke, leaving the 28 year old free from the almost-boiling chilli on her flesh. The boss new about this too. What resulted from this incident was an email warning us coworkers to be more careful. Nonetheless, more of a chance could have happened. The boss should have learned that the tubes are breakable and either discountiune to put hot chilli in them or have gotten new tubes for the chili.

Yet I also understand that sometimes it is impossible to try to predict an outcome or an accident. For example, when workers fall, that is a common and unperdictable injury. How can a bussiness try to stop gravity? Which bring into the common knowledge, that falling, different from leaping, tends to require more than just gravity. This is another exmample of why having sucha  good relationship with the workers are important. See, workers could have slipped a little in a specific spot, and not thought anything about it. But if the boss directly asks, then the workers could be honest and retell the almost-falling experience. It is also good for the boss to be in good relations, in general, with the coworkers. The first year I started, I was intimitated by the big boss man. And having senior employees be fearful of him too would not make me feel comfertable around him. Even if he ask, directly, if there is something that could be fixed.

Looking back unto the question, How can businesses lessen the risk of personal injury to either employees or customers?, I think the most reasonably and cheapest way, is to set precautions. The boss at the fast food restaurant would of had spend a lot of money by buying new bans then rather paying from half a million in medical bills. Even now, there is a sign in the microwaves restricting anyone under the age of 18 to not be able to use the microwaves. No other precaution has been set. Business have a repeutation of not caring for the employees; yet, a simple precaustion list would show the employees the bosses care. At times it might be irksome, (I assume, as I cannot relate my fast food resturant to having a precaustion list and having a caring relationship for the workers.) yet everyone, employees or employers, would much rather have a safe envirorment.

By Gabrielle Fracassi

The cake of the kings

Everybody at schoolB today got cake at lunch. As usual, they put the dessert right in front of us. My friend Zelie had something great in her cake. (When I saw it is was actually blue, but it will make more sense to say grey.) Everybody around her wanted her to eat faster. I thought they were trying to rush her to go outside. But I was confused because I was sitting at her table and they weren't yelling at me, just her.

I took a bite of my cake because I didn't know why they wereU screaming.

I was very hungry. But then I sawN the blue thing in mine. I didn't want to eat it because it looked disgusting. Out of curiousity I was wondering why they put it there. I pulled it out and it was a blue snake. cha cha.

Zelie got an elephant in her piece of cake. It was grey.

I knew what the game was. You take a piece of cake and there might be a little tiny figure in the cake. If you get the toy you are king or queen of the day and get to wear a crown. If you don't get it you are a loser.

Zelie and I switched. I now have the elephant.

Then end.

P.S. Ellie got one too on the same day. Katie got one before us.

boring Dungeon

O.K so when my famliy went to the dungeon the outside looked cool. When we got inside, there was a desk (in France it seems like they do that with all the old buildings) and we had to pay to go inside the boring dungeon. We went into our first room, there was a giant lame new purple sign thing. It sort of looked like a giant book. That room was lame. They could have put fake people in there.

Then we went down the stairs. They were Cinderella stairs where they go round and round and round. (My mom calls them spiral stairs). Some of the stairs were so old, they had to put in new stairs. It was weird.

The next room was also lame because it had plates. Not ugly rusty plates for prisoners in the dungeon but fancy plates. It was lame. What are fancy plates doing in a dungeon? Lame, really lame.

Right next to it was a big old room and nothing was in it. It was really dark. When you spoke there was an Echo echo echo echo echo.

Then we went to a room with paintings. Why are there paintings in a dungeon? Lame. really really lame.

I am going to skip the rest of the painting part because it is just like the plates.

Then we went up the stairs, again, and there was the roof. It was pretty cool. It was not lame. You could see everything. The whole town. The dungeon was a little fun.

After the dungeon we went and had hot chocolate and a pastry.

Near the cafe, there was this really really bad singing guy. It was weird. He had a microphone, drums and a piano. He never touched the piano. It was weird because he yelled into the microphone and was drumming at the same time. It is a microphone you aren't supposed to yell into it.

quick story

My library teacher helps me learn French.

One day when she was helping me, we were working on seasons.

She said the French word for autumn is automne.

She says, how do you say it in English. I say fall. Because in America you have autumn and fall. But most people say fall. So I told her fall.

Then she says it was autumn.

After that she struggled saying "I only speak English. Not American"

Giggle (by me).

Zelie

Last Saturday, Sept. 18, my new friend Zelie came over.

I was so excited.

The day before the playdate I wrote a note in French to Zelie that asked: would you come to my house to play. She wanted to come over.

In the morning before the playdate with Zelie we went to the market. At the market, Zelie was there!! We had no clue she was going to be there. I asked her to bring her swimsuit. Her mom said she loved swimming.

I like Zelie because she reminds me of Georgia and she was the first person to help me out. Zelie was in my first class.

When Zelie came over on Saturday, she brought me a present. In France, when you go to a new house, you give the person you are playing with a present.

Zelie does not speak English and I don't speak French (of course). But what we do is that we communicate silently.

da da da dum . . . . . . silently.

We went swimming. We went up and down a lot of stairs. We went outside. We had a snack.

It was a fun time.

My new class

At the end of my first day my teacher told me that I was going to switch classes. I wasn't happy because I really liked my class. I wanted to stay there.

On my second day, Friday, I went to my new class. I have a new teacher and it is a boy. At first I didn't really like the class. The teacher was nice but I didn't really like the new kids in my class. To me, the room was dark and ewww. But in my other class the room was all bright and yay.

In my new class, I would sit wondering what to do or the teacher would try to translate to English. In my old class, the teacher spoke fluent English.

In the afternoon, I was sitting at my desk when my new teacher called my name. He said, "what is this?" He was pointing to a map. I thought he wanted to know what place it was. So I said "France" He said, "No" Then he looked it up in a dictionary and he said it was a map. Duh, I knew that.

This really tall guy in my class has really short hair. At the top his hair is really short. Like a minature mohawk. It is hilarous.

I have gotten to know the kids in my new class a lot better and they don't seem so bad. I just really liked my other class.

I have gone to school more and I like my new class more but my other class is still my favorite.

I only see my other teacher in English.

Lunch is awesome. It sort of feels like you are eating with your family because they have metal silverware and real plates. I have to bring in a cloth napkin.

first day of school

Thursday was my first day of school.

I had to walk to school instead of riding a bus. I am sort of glad I don't have to ride a bus because I don't want to sit next to a crabby teenager or a whiny baby.

Here you can either drive or walk and I want to walk.

Now about school. I was a little nervous about the first day of school. I was wondering how to open lockers because I didn't know what they looked like. Then I figured out, they don't have lockers. They have this little thingy on their desk. It is like a hook and you put your backpack on it. They don't call it a backpack, they call it a sac.

When you first get to the school, you don't go inside. The teachers stand outside and you play outside until it time to go in. You know when to go inside because everybody goes in.

When I first got there I had no idea what to do. I stood there doing nothing. But this girl came up and she talked to me. Then I ran to grandma and asked how to say, "I don't speak French."

It took about 20 hours for me to figure it out, but I finally got it.

When I got inside everybody started talking and they all crowded around me. It was weird because they all wanted to hold my hand on the way to class.

When I got to class there was this girl I sat next to who helped me. During recess we played together.

I sat in the back of the classroom so no one would do stuff behind my back. That is a weird sentence.

My teacher speaks English and French. She was nice.

Lunch was AWESOME. In France, you sit with 3 other people at a lunch table. Other people are around you, but there is a wall in between the tables. The food is good. First, you have an appetizer. Then the main meal. Then DESSERT. They bring the food in a serving dish to the table. The first main meal was steak and green beans. Then it was chocolate for dessert.

Recess. The first day was really weird because everyone was around me. So we sort of played a game where someone held my hand and then we just ran fast and everyone else chased us.

I think that it enough for now.

p.s. at home it is 2:20 in the afternoon. In France it is 8:20 pm.