Flying Frozen Fish, Burning Chairs, Spine-Cracking Pickles: The Year’s Spookiest Workplace Accidents

Flying frozen fish and errant golf balls, spine-cracking pickles and burning chairs—those are the sort of workplace claims tales one would expect to hear about as Halloween arrives.

Just in time to celebrate the spooky season, Pie Insurance compiled a list of the most bizarre injuries from 2025, which also includes a jackhammer spike bouncing 20 feet to puncture a shoulder and worker stapling their own hand.

The tales arise from the 2025 State Workplace Safety report as well as the 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety report, in which employers and employees share stories of weird accidents. The reports also reveal a big gap in how workplace safety is viewed by employees vs. employers.

While many employers expressed confidence in the safety measures they have in place, many employees in the report talked about stress, hazard and accidents waiting to happen.

“Employers typically don’t have either a very comprehensive plan around risk management or unanticipated risks outside of what they are expecting,” explained Paul Gladden, senior director of claims for Pie Insurance.

Gladden, who has been in the insurance claims business for more than 20 years, said the gap in perception over workplace safety is an opportunity for employers and their risk managers to improve things.

“One of the things that our survey has shown is that there is a divide between how employers feel about whether or not their injured workers are well taken care of and satisfied with the care they receive,” Gladden said. “So, a lot of what we are focusing on is that gap between the two where essentially the safety protocols that the business (has in) place are actually effective and the employees see them being there and being present.”

Flying Fish, Golf Balls, and Jackhammers

One employee in the Pie survey reported being knocked unconscious after being hit by a golf ball from a coworker during a much-needed practice session to improve their swing.

Another employee was also knocked out at another workplace, this time from a frozen fish launched from a dysfunctional conveyer belt.

A grotesque, and painful report from another employee told of a jackhammer spike bouncing 20 feet into the air, returning and puncturing the worker’s shoulder.

The report also draws on the most recent National Safety Council statistics showing that death by objects and equipment caused 779 worker fatalities and several more major non-fatal injuries in 2023. That made objects and equipment the third leading cause behind workplace deaths.

The Pie Insurance report advises on prevention strategies including prohibitions of recreational acts in the workplace, incorporating regular equipment maintenance procedures, posting warning signs on dangerous machinery, applying machine guarding protocols and informing employees of the urgency of reporting machine malfunctions.

More Scary Work Tales

In another workplace nightmare, an employee ended up breaking his spine after slipping on a pickle dropped on the lunchroom floor.

An employee at another workplace broke a hip while sitting in a low positioned chair. In another, even scarier workplace chair mishap, an employee suffered third degree burns from an office chair that became intensely hot when left unattended.

A burn tale that makes a bit more sense came from a report of an employee reaching into a fryer without knowing the oil was above 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, they were left with serious burns.

American Burn Association data show that more than 40,000 people are hospitalized annually due to burn-related injuries.

Stress And Shingles

Pie’s 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety report places mental health above physical injuries as the leading concern for employee safety. According to the World Health Organization, anxiety and depression continues to cause $1 trillion global economy losses per year.

The American Psychological Association reports that most of the stress that American adults experience is rooted in their work, causing many physical detriments such as mental health disorders, poor immune systems, and cardiovascular disease.

The Pie report tells of an employee who reported that a 40-year-old coworker became so stressed that she developed shingles near her eye.

The report suggests ways to reduce workplace stress is to establish standard mental health protocols, provide employee assistance programs, having managers recognize stress and burnout, fostering a culture where employees can express concerns, being flexible with schedules and managing workloads.

Everyday Items Are Potential Hazards

Other anecdotes in the Pie report include a housekeeping worker who sprayed chemicals in her eyes because the bottle was facing in her direction, an employee who stapled their hand instead of a document, several employees injured when flowerpots fell from a high place and an employee’s failure to turn off the lights in the building that caused a blown fuse and resulted in serious burns to another employee the next day.

Chief among the preventive strategies the Pie Insurance report highligts is to create an encouraging culture where employees can report problems right away.

According to Gladden, businesses that do not have enough senior managers to interact with employees and report their concerns to the employer can cause an employer to mainly focus on the core risks of their business and forget workplace perils.

The National Safety Council reports that American businesses lose $170 billion annually from medical costs, administration costs, and lost in productivity from workplace incidents.

Maniar is an intern at Wells Media and a student at Cal State University Fullerton working on a bachelors degree in communications. He expects to graduate in December.