The News You Need for Aug. 5
Using your kind school. Pa. causation. And construction safety.
Answering the Call: Kind Souls Foundation Seeks Volunteers to Be the Human Voice of Hope
When injury or illness takes someone out of the workforce, the physical pain is only part of the story. What follows often includes emotional disorientation, mental health challenges, financial instability, and an overwhelming sense of isolation. For workers and their families navigating the fallout of health-related job displacement, the journey can be overwhelming.
Yet in the midst of that hardship, there is a growing support network that exists for one purpose to remind people that they are not alone. That support comes from the Kind Souls Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a bold mission: to offer heartfelt emotional support, community connection, and practical resources to individuals and families during times of dramatic change.
Today, Kind Souls is inviting people across the country to become a part of this mission. The foundation is actively seeking volunteers to serve on its Warm Line Team, the emotional support line that serves as a safe harbor for those in distress.
This is a call to impact, not just for those in the workers’ compensation system, but for anyone with the heart and willingness to show up for others in their time of need.
A Human Response to a Human Problem
At its core, the Kind Souls Foundation was created in response to a missing piece in the care ecosystem. While insurance benefits, medical treatments, and employer support programs are designed to restore physical and financial well-being, the emotional toll of being removed from the workforce often goes unaddressed.
The foundation was built to change that.
Whether the worker recovering from a life-altering diagnosis, a parent adjusting to caregiving responsibilities, or a family member overwhelmed by the ripple effect of trauma, Kind Souls meets people exactly where they are. Kind Souls provides a safe, confidential, and compassionate outlet during one of the most vulnerable chapters of their lives. This is the core purpose of humanity, being seen by another human to listen and validated throughout their experience.
The Warm Line: A Voice of Connection and Care
The flagship service of Kind Souls Foundation is its Warm Line. The Warm Line is a confidential emotional support line operated by trained volunteers. Unlike clinical therapy, crisis hotlines, or legal aid services, the Warm Line is simple and very impactful. It is a nonjudgmental space where callers are heard, validated, and supported by another human being who is fully present.
Volunteers return Warm Line calls within 48–72 hours, providing a steady voice of empathy and, when needed, guidance toward practical resources like food, housing, or financial assistance. What callers receive extends beyond information. This is the purest form of human connection. Each conversation is an opportunity to reduce fear, provide reassurance, and remind the caller that they matter.
Why Emotional Support Matters in Workers’ Compensation
In workers’ compensation, we measure metrics like days lost, claim duration, litigation frequency, and return-to-work percentages. What often gets overlooked is the human story underneath those numbers. While organizations are using words to state they care about this, we can be real and acknowledge this is a profitability scheme when there is no action to support these initiatives. Kind Souls is different. Kind Souls IS the action, the empathy, and the impact the workers’ compensation industry desperately needs to validate humans within the system.
Job displacement due to health events disrupts routines, family dynamics, financial security, and a sense of identity. Those consequences are heavy and deeply personal. Left unaddressed, they can slow recovery, erode trust in systems, and deepen the stigma surrounding mental health in the workplace. Kind Souls steps into this gap by providing a real-world, low-barrier, stigma-free approach to emotional support. Through the Warm Line, the foundation becomes an emotional first responder, a place where empathy leads the way and healing begins with conversation.
What Kind Souls Is Looking For in Volunteers
This is not a clinical volunteer role, and that’s what makes it so powerful. Anyone can help!
The Kind Souls Foundation is currently seeking volunteers nationwide who are:
No prior experience in mental health or workers’ compensation is required. Volunteers do not provide legal, claims, or medical advice. Their role is to listen, validate, and offer the gift of human connection.
As Andrew Bloom, who oversees outreach for Kind Souls, emphasizes, “This work is about presence. You don’t need to fix anything. You just need to be there.”
Training and resource materials are provided, and volunteers can complete their calls from anywhere in the country. Conversations typically last 30–45 minutes, with ongoing support available for volunteers who need guidance after a call.
Why This Call for Volunteers Is Urgent
Across the United States, thousands of people are being displaced from the workforce due to health conditions or injuries. While support may exist for physical recovery, emotional support is often missing or inaccessible, especially for those who fall through the cracks of traditional systems. Caregivers and family members experience significant stress and trauma during these times. Whether it's navigating insurance systems, managing household responsibilities, or watching a loved one suffer, caregivers often report feelings of burnout, loneliness, and helplessness.
Kind Souls aims to reach all these individuals: workers, family members, caregivers, and even HR teams looking for meaningful support services for their employees. And they are growing! Which is fantastic and also, with the continued growth to support people, the Warm Line needs more voices. More kindness. More people willing to sit in the discomfort with someone else and simply say, “You’re not alone in this.”
How the Workers’ Compensation Industry Can Help
This is a moment for the workers’ compensation industry to step up! Not with policy or process, but with people. Yes, that means you reading this now. Claims professionals, HR teams, nurse case managers, attorneys, brokers, and risk leaders have a direct line to those experiencing displacement. They are often the first to know when someone is struggling. By referring individuals to the Warm Line or encouraging volunteer participation, the industry can amplify the work of Kind Souls in meaningful ways.
Employers can promote this resource as part of their broader well-being strategies. By partnering with Kind Souls or distributing information about the Warm Line, companies can demonstrate a commitment to emotional health and psychological safety in the workplace. Employers, pay attention. This is a strategy for human-centered risk management.
How to Get Involved
If you or someone you know is interested in volunteering for the Kind Souls Warm Line, now is the time to raise your hand. Here are three ways you can do something now, today, in this moment!
Contact Andrew Bloom directly at abloom@kindsoulsfoundation.org for more information, training details, and next steps.
Visit www.kindsoulsfoundation.org to learn more about the organization’s mission and impact.
Share this article with industry colleagues, human resources professionals, and community groups who may want to get involved or help spread the word.
The Power of Showing Up
In times of crisis, what people often need most is not a solution or your advice. People need connection. A voice on the other end of the line. A human who says, “I see you. I hear you. I’m with you.”
That is what Kind Souls offers. And it is an opportunity for you to leave the world better than you found it.
For those who feel called to make a difference, this is your invitation to be a light in someone’s darkness. To be the voice that cuts through the noise. To be a Kind Soul.
Now is the time to answer that call.
When is Medical Evidence Necessary in Pennsylvania to Show Causation?
Chris Parker
Do You Know the Rule?
In Pennsylvania, a workers’ compensation claimant has to prove that he sustained an injury. He also needs to show that his job caused the injury. Because the employee bears the burden of proof to show that causal link, he may have to provide expert medical testimony.
Does a worker need medical evidence to show causation when it’s obvious?
No. When the causal relationship is obvious, no medical evidence is required to show that the job caused the injury.
Generally, where an employee is doing an act as part of his job that requires force or strain and pain is experienced at the point of force or strain, the connection is obvious. This is because pain is a clear symptom of an injury.
Another way to put this is that the relationship between the job and injury is obvious if the injury immediately manifests itself while the claimant is performing a work task, the nature of which can cause the injury. For example, the connection is likely clear when a furniture store employee grabs his back in pain after bending over to lift one side of a couch.
Need to know more about causation in your state? You need Simply Research.
The key feature of obviousness is that it involves a connection that is clear enough that an untrained layperson would have no problem making the connection between the job and the injury, or the injury and the disability.
What if the cause is not obvious?
If the causal relationship between the work and injury, or work injury and disability, is not obvious, then the employee has to establish that relationship with “unequivocal” medical testimony.
What does “unequivocal” mean?
Medical testimony is considered unequivocal if the medical expert, after establishing a proper foundation, testifies within his professional opinion that a certain fact or condition exists.
What are some case examples where the job obviously caused the injury?
A registered nurse was moving a large patient when he felt something pop in his back, experienced immediate pain, and mentioned it to his co-worker. Northwest Medical Center v. WCAB, No. 409 C.D. 2005 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 07/08/05).
A baker-in-training suddenly developed a rash on her face, neck, and arms, accompanied with mild shortness of breath, while in the third hour of her regularly scheduled shift in the bakery department. Giant Eagle, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Bd., No. 725 A.2d 873 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1999).
What are some case examples where it was not obvious that the job caused the injury?
The employee worked for a metals fabricator and had smoked cigarettes for more than 30 years when she started. She claimed that exposure at work to harsh substances, such as acetone and a nickel alloy, used to treat metal, caused her lung injuries. Nagi v. Medplast Engineered Products, Inc., No. 391 C.D. 2023 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 07/10/25).
A psychiatric assistant claimed that she became disabled as a result of injury she sustained two months earlier when she had to physically restrain a patient with a blanket for 2.5 hours. Albert Einstein Healthcare v. WCAB , No. 2189 C.D. 2007 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 04/04/08).
Construction Worker Buried under Dirt, One of Several Killed on Job
Safety at Work
Goodyear, AZ (WorkersCompensation.com) – A construction worker died after being buried under six feet of dirt at a construction site in Arizona.
He was just one of several workers killed on the site over the past two weeks.
According to police, emergency crews were called to a construction site in Goodyear, a suburb of Phoenix, around 1 p.m. on Monday, July 28. The Goodyear Fire Department Ruben Real said first responders found Ronald Andrew Baquera, Jr., 44, stuck in a hole about six feet underground.
Fire crew members attempted to dig Baquera out from underneath the dirt but were not able to get him out.
“The problem was, as they pulled dirt out, more dirt was collapsing in, which really made this rescue almost impossible,” Goodyear Police Deputy Chief Jose Gonzalez told media outlets. “Our hearts go out to the family of the individual who’s trapped, as well as to the partners who are here working with this individual."
The rescue was hampered, officials said, by crews coming close to nearby gas lines. After several hours, the operation was transitioned from a rescue effort to a recovery effort. Baquera’s body was recovered early Tuesday morning.
"No one goes to work expecting not to come home that night," Gonzalez added.
The Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health told ABC 15 the incident is under investigation to see if there were any safety violations at the site. That report, the agency said, could take up to six months.
In Toms River, N.J., a night crew construction worker was killed when an impaired driver struck him.
Officials said police were called to a construction site around 1 a.m. on Thursday in response to a report of a crash involving an injured pedestrian.
Officers found an unnamed man in the road with serious injuries. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office said. Ocean County and Toms River detective determined that a vehicle struck the man while he was working for a construction company.
Police charged Douglas Smith, 51, of Toms River, with driving while intoxicated and reckless driving. Prosecutors said Smith was taken into custody and had blood drawn to determine his blood alcohol level. Depending on the results, the prosecutor’s office said, Smith could face criminal charges.
In Gulfport, Miss., a radio station employee was killed in a freak accident, officials said.
Police were called to Coast Radio Group last Friday when an out-of-control car crashed through the front of a building housing seven radio stations. Fifty-nine-year-old Elizabeth Thornburg, an office administrator at the station, died at the scene Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer said.
According to officials, the car left Seaway Road and hit the building near the front door and drove through three offices before stopping about 40 feet inside the building. Thornburg’s office was one of the offices that the car went through.
Three other people were hospitalized in stable condition, including the driver and a passenger in the car. Gulfport Police Commander Clayton Fulks said the cause of the crash was unclear, but no one had been charged by Friday afternoon. Authorities said the accident was under investigation, and that there was a possibility the driver may have had a medical emergency.
And in Becket, Mass., a production manager at a performance center was killed in a workplace accident Friday.
According to the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office, Kat Sirico, 40, was using a dolly to move theater staging platforms across Jacob’s Pillow Dance Property on Friday. As she drove the dolly down a slope, the dolly began to roll. As she tried to regain control of the dolly, she tripped and fell, the DA said. The dolly then ran over Sirico and the platforms landed on them.
Officials said nearby bystanders tried to save Sirico with lifesaving measures but were unsuccessful. Law enforcement deemed Sirico’s death a workplace accident, and that no criminal charges would be filed.
The performance center canceled its Aug 1 through 3 performances and said it would resume performances this week.
“Their spirit, generosity, and dedication touched the lives of many,” Jacob’s Pillow said of Sirico in a Facebook post Friday.
Thank you for the write-up! 📞 The phone is ringing and we need volunteers!! 🩵