Based upon the competent and substantial evidence, I find:
Claimant has been employed by Employer for 24 years, and has been a package car driver since 1997. As a package car driver, she works full time from forty to forty-eight hours per week driving a commercial route which encompasses a forty-five to fifty mile region. She picks up, delivers, and loads packages onto trucks and off docks. She handles packages that range in weight from ounces up to seventy pounds. If a package weighs over seventy pounds, she receives assistance lifting. She delivers 300 packages in an average day. Most of her deliveries are on docks. She receives some help from her customers at these docks. Claimant testified she is constantly moving while working. She is constantly reaching overhead for packages. In a normal eight-hour day, Claimant receives a one-hour lunch break, but can break it up if she chooses.
On September 17, 2002, Claimant was on her lunch break inside the hub. It had been raining and the pavement was wet. Claimant slipped on some oil and fell under the truck. She fell flat on her back, but she did not hit her head. She complained initially of a sore low back. At that time, she had no complaints to any other body part.
The First Report of Injury for the September 17, 2002, date of injury documents Claimant felt pain in the hip and the low back. Claimant testified that when she reported the September 17, 2002, date of injury, she did not report complaints to the left shoulder, left arm or neck. At the time of the September 17, 2002, injury Claimant did not ask Employer to pay for or provide medical treatment for her.
Claimant continued to work from September 17, 2003, until May 2003, and lost no time from work. According to Claimant, she had been taking Vioxx for her knee, and when she stopped taking it in April 2003, she started noticing numbness in her upper back that radiated into her arm.
Claimant first sought medical treatment on May 30, 2003, when she went to her private medical doctor, Dr. Arthur Gale, because the numbness in her arm had gotten so bad she thought she was having a stroke. She presented to Dr. Gale on that date with complaints of pain "since early this week" in the upper anterior chest above the breast, left shoulder blade, that radiated down into her fingers. Claimant was on vacation between May 16, 2003, and June 2, 2003. Claimant did not provide Dr. Gale with a history of the September 17, 2002, fall at the time she first sought treatment for these complaints. When Claimant returned to Dr. Gale's office on June 20, 2003, she mentioned falling on her back on pavement seven months before. Dr. Gale's impression was left cervical radiculitis. Dr. Gale ordered an MRI of the neck on June 20, 2003, which revealed desiccation affecting some of the cervical discs but no evidence of disc herniation or spinal stenosis. Claimant did not return to Dr. Gale's office after June 20, 2003.
Claimant was evaluated by Dr. Allen of Orthopedic Specialists on June 9, 2002, at the request of Employer. Dr. Allen's records document a history that Claimant's left arm, left shoulder and neck complaints began approximately two weeks prior to the June 9, 2003, exam, and that Claimant presented to her personal medical physician with these complaints thinking she had had a stroke. Dr. Allen diagnosed a left shoulder and trapezius strain and hand parasthesias, but did not feel her complaints were work related. Claimant agreed that Dr. Allen did not provide medical treatment to her, and referred her to her private medical doctor.
Claimant next sought treatment approximately one year later with Dr. Lipede on June 21, 2004, with a history of complaints in the shoulder and mid sternum for two months. She also described neck pain. The June 21, 2004, history in Dr. Lipede's report and x-ray report suggests Claimant was in an automobile accident. Claimant testified that she did not tell Dr. Lipede about the September 17, 2002, injury at work, but said her complaints were from getting in a car. On June 21, 2004, a cervical x-ray report reflects the reason for the neck xray is that Claimant was in a motor vehicle accident. Claimant admitted she purposely avoided telling Dr. Lipede she thought her complaints were work related because he probably wouldn't want to see her. Claimant testified she was afraid to file a workers' compensation claim because she didn't want to jeopardize her employment. Claimant treated with Dr. Lipede through January 25, 2005.
At the request of her attorney, Claimant presented to Dr. Barry Feinberg on October 29, 2003. She complained of back pain, primarily on the lower left side, mid-back pain, and upper back pain, primarily on the right side. Claimant provided a history that her complaints were a result of an injury occurring on September 17, 2002, when she fell underneath a truck.
Dr. Feinberg diagnosed low back syndrome, thoracic spinal pain, non-vertebrogenic and non-discogenic, spondylitic change in thoracic spine without evidence of myelopathy, myofascial pain syndrome, and sacroilitis. Dr. Feinberg felt that Claimant would benefit from a course of physical therapy at some point in the future.
Dr. Feinberg opined Claimant's complaints are a result of the work-related injury that Claimant suffered in September 2002. Dr. Feinberg opined that Claimant's mid-back pain and upper back pain are causally related to the September 17, 2002, work injury, and that Claimant aggravated her preexisting low back pain in the same injury. Dr. Feinberg rated Claimant's disability at 10\% permanent partial disability of the thoracic spine, and 10\%
permanent partial disability of the lower back and sacroiliac joint as a result of the September 17, 2002, injury.
Administrative notice is taken of the claim filed by Claimant for Injury Number 02-106864, the September 17, 2002, date of injury. The formal claim was filed on October 22, 2004, alleging injuries to the neck, shoulders, and back.
Administrative notice is taken of Employer's First Report of Injury for Injury Number 02-106864. It was filed on October 3, 2002, for the September 17, 2002, injury.
Ms. Denise McKibben testified on behalf of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company regarding the payments made by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company as the carrier for Employer on the September 17, 2002, claim. Ms. McKibben has been handling claims for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company for twenty-two years. Ms. McKibben is familiar with the record keeping regarding medical payments made by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. Ms. McKibben testified that Liberty Mutual Insurance Company paid $\ 99.06 for the visit to Dr. Allen on June 9, 2003 for the September 17, 2002 claim. The payment was issued by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company on August 6, 2003. No other payments to any other medical providers were issued by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company on behalf of Claimant.
Claimant had a January 29, 1999, work injury to her low back which she settled in November 2001 for 17.5 % permanent partial disability of the body as a whole referable to the low back.
A March 25, 1999, MRI of the lumbar spine reveals degenerative disc disease at L4-5 with disc protrusion, mild disc bulging at L5-S1 and degenerative changes. There is also a March 9, 2000, MRI of the lumbar spine showing degenerative changes at L4-5 and L5-S1. Both MRI reports document a history of low back pain, left hip, and left leg pain. The records of Dr. Anthony Guarino from February 23, 2000, to August 11, 2002, document the treatment Claimant had for her low back, hip, and leg complaints for the January 29, 1999, low back injury.
Claimant is seeking medical treatment to address the pain in her left shoulder and arm, because it is getting worse.