Railroad Worker Safety: The Hazards of Noise and Hearing Loss

St Louis, MIOne might normally associate hazards inherent with railroad worker safety as stemming from asbestos and breathing in potentially lethal mineral dust—not to mention the dangers working around moving equipment weighing several hundred tons. However, lost in the headlines of horrific injuries and deaths happening on the railroad, is hearing loss and the noise pollution that causes it.

That's the basis for a lawsuit launched against Norfolk Southern by a Madison County railroad worker, who toiled for the line for more than thirty years and alleges that Norfolk Southern was negligent by not taking steps to mitigate excessive noise at the workplace.

The plaintiff alleges damage to his ears, inner ear, tympanic membrane, and eardrums. Not only does the plaintiff claim overall hearing loss, but also alleges damage to nerve endings in his head, as well as impact on other tissues, and damage that has affected his body in other areas. The man is suing for $100,000 plus costs, and alleges that Norfolk Southern was not only negligent in its failure to reduce noise levels in the workplace, but also in its failure to protect employees from excessive and damaging noise levels.

Equipment such as train whistles and horns that were allegedly located too close to employees and passengers, are specified in the litigation.

The lawsuit is filed under the auspices of the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), a statute enacted in 1908 as an effort to protect workers from uncaring rail moguls, and to given them a leg to stand on in court were they to suffer injury while on the job. It is a cruel irony that many of those men who stood before their employer in a FELA lawsuit did not actually have legs to stand on, crushed or sliced off by the sheer weight and ferocity of a locomotive or railcar.

But while life working on the railroad is fraught with risk, lost amidst the horrific headlines is the mere fact that railroads can be noisy places. Whistles and horns notwithstanding, the singularly audible crash caused when two behemoth cars, or an engine are hooked onto one another produce high-decibel sounds that can prove jarring to both a person's hearing, as well as his nerves and emotional well-being.

Other industries that prove a source for high-level sound, such as road construction sites, airports and forestry, take care to outfit heir employees with sound-deadening ear protectors, and take other precautions to mitigate risk. While it is not known whether Norfolk Southern took similar steps in an effort to protect its workers, the plaintiff alleges negligence on the part of his employer for doing an insufficient job in the mitigation, if not the actual elimination of unwanted and dangerous noise.

It is no secret that the railroad is a dangerous place to work. Just witness the statistics: over a nine-year period from 1998 to 2007 the Federal Railroad Administration reports 145 railroad worker deaths and 45,000 injuries associated with a stunning 100,000 train accidents over that time frame.

One can imagine that incidents of risk to railroad worker safety, many of them unreported, could number far higher than that.

However, in acknowledging the risk as a given, the plaintiff asserts that such dangers do not give an employer the right to turn a blind eye to other risks of the job that could be mitigated, or prevented altogether. And hearing loss is a serious condition. While occurring naturally in most people over time, exposure to dangerously high levels of noise only serves to exacerbate the condition, and speeds its onset. Hearing loss can lead to emotional trauma for younger individuals, and treatment can be expensive. Today's hearings aids are high-tech, and maintenance can carry a high, ongoing cost.

While hearing loss may not carry the same kind of headline-thumping impact of a severed leg or a broken back, it is every bit as devastating for the sufferer, and his or her family.

It can only be hoped that the plaintiff will manage to hear the workings of the court, when the litigation proceedings commence.