It's a difficult spot to be in and from what I've read so far, I'm not the only one who tried the honest route and got the "we'll call you" comment.

I worked in HR as well for a year + and if the words injury/medical reasons/w/c came up I was supposed to pass on the applicant. In fact, when my manager told me that my general manager "would not want anything to do with an applicant because she was out on w/c" (she had a cast on her foot) I said " I have an open comp case, does that make me a bad person? " She never commented...long story short, I gave my notice the next day (Friday) and I was termed on Monday.

There are some good suggestions on the previous posts as to how to handle the lapse in employment. Another that was never questioned while interviewing was when someone was in self employment. They Can't verify it because you were your own boss and that goes for back ground checks as well.

Technically, I'm self employed, I sell a couple things on e-bay here and there. So that's how I'll be covering my work history.