A workplace injury can lead to a second accident, and the second injury may also be compensable when the evidence connects the events. That was the finding in Decision No. 347/07, 2008 ONWSIAT 645.
A worker slipped at work and strained her ankle. She was able to carry on working, but later that day she fainted and fell, injuring her neck and shoulder. The Board accepted responsibility for the ankle injury but denied entitlement for the injuries from the later fall. The worker appealed.
The Tribunal examined the relationship between the first injury and the worker's fainting episode. It found that she fainted because she felt unwell as a consequence of the ankle strain. That factual finding linked the later fall to the compensable incident at work.
The worker's appeal was allowed, with entitlement extended to the neck and shoulder injuries. The important question wasn't whether both sets of injuries arose at exactly the same moment. It was whether the later harm was a consequence of the first compensable workplace injury.
The result shouldn't be treated as an automatic rule that every subsequent accident is covered. The evidence of causation remained central. It illustrates why compensation investigations should examine the sequence of events rather than deciding a later injury is unrelated simply because it happened after the original accident.
Source note: The account is grounded in WSIAT's official published counsel summary. The legacy full decision PDF could not be retrieved.