Study: Healthcare staffers rank high for workplace injuries

Nurse Shauna Trapani's patient was a deadweight - literally - the last time she injured her back at work so badly that she had to miss a day of work. Trapani, 35, had to roll a deceased patient from the emergency room at Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where she works, to the hospital's morgue, a trip that involves pushing a bed up a ramp, around a 90-degree turn, and up another ramp. "It's very physical work, and sometimes you just can't do it," said Trapani, who said she has suffered from work-related back pain for a decade. Health-care workers in general, and nurses' assistants in particular, have some of the highest incidents of workplace injuries among all occupations, according to a U.S. Labor Department report released this week.