Claimant was 29 years old in 2000 when he started working for Spirtas Industrial at the Bevo Building project at Anheuser Busch on the sixth floor. At that time, he was demolishing a solid concrete floor using a bobcat with an attachment on the front, called a brake hammer, which broke up the concrete. Claimant testified that when he broke up the concrete, he frequently encountered hidden items such as old pipes or metal, which caused the brake hammer to abruptly stop. This abrupt stopping jarred the bobcat, causing Claimant to hit his head on the top of the small metal cage that ran over the top of his head. Claimant estimated a clearance of approximately 1 inch between the top of his head and the ceiling of the bobcat. He occasionally wore a hard hat while operating the bobcat but would remove the hard hat to give him more room.
Claimant testified that from April to July 2000, while performing the concrete job, he repeatedly bounced and hit his head on the top of the metal cage. Claimant estimated that this happened 95 % of the time while he was performing the demolition job. Claimant worked from 8 to 12 hours a day with a thirty-minute break, 5 to 7 days a week.
Claimant testified he first noticed pain in the upper left side of his neck, in the side of his shoulder, and down his left arm to the tips of his fingers at the beginning of April 2000. Claimant testified he mentioned his symptoms to the Safety Director, and requested a different machine. He asked the foreman to change the machine, and asked to go to the doctor. According to Claimant, the foreman advised Claimant to go to his own doctor. Claimant also testified that Employer declined changing equipment because they did not want to hassle with using Anheuser-Busch's freight elevators.
Claimant testified that he went to his own physician, Dr. Anzalone. Dr. Anzalone referred Claimant to a neurologist, but when the day came for Claimant to see him, he was told by Employer that he couldn't leave work because there was no one to cover him. At one point Employer had another operator do Claimant's job for 4 or 5 days while Claimant watched from the sideline. Claimant testified his pain decreased while he was on the sidelines, but it continued to hurt when he went back to the demolition job.
Claimant stopped working for Spirtas in August of 2002. The demolition job ended in July, and for the remainder of the time Claimant worked for Spirtas, he used several types of different machines including the bobcat, backhoe, fork truck and rough terrain crane. Many of the machines that he used while at Spirtas caused
his body, including his neck, to be jarred. He testified that the symptoms in his neck continued while he was working for Spirtas after he stopped working on the bobcat, but while he worked on other machines.
After Claimant left Employer, he went to work for Gershenson Construction as a heavy equipment operator. He operated a backhoe and high lift. The job at Gershenson was more physical, and his left arm and neck complaints increased. The symptoms that he felt at Gershenson increased to the point where he had to stop working for Gershenson, and went to see Dr. Martin, a neurosurgeon, on October 15, 2002. Following an MRI, which revealed a disc herniation, Claimant had surgery on October 21, 2002. After his surgery, Claimant was off work for five months, and eventually went back to work for James Cape \& Sons as a heavy equipment operator in March 2003.
Claimant has not had any medical treatment for his neck since he last saw Dr. Martin on December 31, 2002. He does not take any prescription medications at this time, and he is still working as a heavy equipment operator.
No one from Employer sent him to see Dr. Anzalone or Dr. Martin, and he went to them on his own. He never notified Employer that he was going to have surgery and that he was requesting that they pay for surgery for what he thought was a work related condition. He never asked his Employer to pay for the surgery and did not ask them to pay for Dr. Anzalone's treatment. He did not request medical aid or treatment from Employer.
Claimant denied having any c