Do I need to record an injury caused by medical treatment for another injury?

If an employee suffers an injury at the hands of medical personnel during treatment for another condition, the new injury is recordable. Examples include the following:

Example 1: An employee suffers a work-related hand injury and requires physical therapy. During treatment, the therapist accidentally breaks the employee’s finger. The new injury is work-related and recordable because the employee would not have been if physical therapy if not for the previous injury. OSHA considers this a direct line of causation (establishing work-relatedness) between the workplace and the broken finger.

Example 2: An employee dies during surgery (or other complications) made necessary by a work-related injury or illness two months after the original injury or illness. The case is recordable. If the underlying injury or illness was recorded prior to the employee’s death, the employer must update the 300 Log by lining out information on less severe outcomes, e.g., days away from work or restricted work, and checking the column indicating death.