Accidents often resulted in severe injury and even death because of the inexperience of the child operating the transport. Slaves received no medical treatment or rarely. The slave-masters may have considered medical help for a valuable slave which was almost always a male with solid build who performed well, but then again, they were usually the last to get sick and often deserved little help
Punishment was brutal under the reign of slave-overseers and plantation owners. Slaves would be tortured with branding irons and sadism was not uncommon meaning that stock-whips were used to whip a man to his death, or let him live if chosen; however, most of them did not survive the wounds.