Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Negligence

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Car accidents related to tire aging kill 90 people and injure 3200 every year. 9% of all car crashes are due to tire related issues according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

As summer season is starting, the NHTSA is urging motorists to check their tires as hot weather and under-inflated or worn down tires are a dangerous mix on the road.

In a previous survey about Tire-Related Factors in the Pre-Crash Phase, NTHSA highlighted the following findings:

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Aneurysm.jpgIn order to prevent Medical Malpractice, observation should be the treatment of choice for all stable brain aneurysms including the smallest ones as all brain aneurysms, even those smaller than the current 7-mm treatment threshold, have 12 times more of a chance to break and lead to a catastrophic brain injury or death if they are growing in size according a recent study published in the Journal of Radiology and lead by J. Pablo Villablanca, M.D., chief of diagnostic neuroradiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. The study also demonstrates that Aneurysm growth, size, and smoking were associated with increased rupture risk.

30,000 Americans each year suffer ruptured brain aneurysms and 40% of them die. Among the survivors, two-thirds suffer permanent neurological damage. A cerebral aneurysm is a growth in a blood vessel in the brain. If it breaks, blood is leaked into or around the brain, which can cause brain damage or death.

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Vordonia Contracting and Supplies Corp./Alma Realty Corp. of Long Island City, MSI of Brooklyn, and North Eastern Precast of Fultonville allowed employees to work dangerously close to high-voltage power lines despite multiple cease and desist notices from the Long Island Power Authority.

Contractors were working on a residential and retail project at the corner of Sunrise Highway and Rockaway Avenue in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York. According to OSHA inspectors, in some areas of the construction site, power lines were just 4 inches above the head of the workers and they have been fortunate not to have been electrocuted.

The 3 contractors were issued willful citations for allowing employees and crane operations in close proximity to the power lines and serious citations for failing to mark the power lines with warning signs. Additional violations were issued for failing to train workers on electrocution hazards, not checking to see whether the lines were energized and unsafe crane operating procedures.

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Last Monday a woman died when she was struck by a truck and fell underneath the rear wheels of the tractor-trailer as it was turning onto onto Prospect Expressway in Kensington, Broolyn, New York. The intersection that once again proved to be very dangerous for pedestrians has been waiting for New York Department of Transportation to install a pedestrian island on Ocean Parkway near Church Ave at the entrance of the expressway.

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A 68 year old man was riding his bike on Sixth Ave in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York when he was hit by a truck. After the accident, the driver stepped out of his truck and looked around and drove away from the scene leaving the victim to die according to the New York Daily News. The driver told the police that he didn’t know that he hit anyone and that he had stopped to ask directions.

Brooklyn is New York’s deadliest place for fatal traffic accidents. In 2011 (most recent statistics available), 79 people died in car crashes in Brooklyn compared to 45 in Manhattan, 65 in the Bronx and 67 in Queens.

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The Bronx collaborative, a group of hospital and medical insurers demonstrated in a study that patients who were participating in a special program to manage transition between hospital and home were less likely to be re-admitted to hospitals than patients who received the current standard care.

Medical problems that lead to hospital re-admissions can often be prevented by personal contacts with patients before and after their discharge. Intensive pre-discharge education, post discharge follow up appointment with the physician and phone calls to review medication and discuss concerns are significantly lowering the re-admission rate and improving patient satisfaction.

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meningitis.jpg745 people have been infected and 58 have died from an outbreak of fungal meningitis associated with epidural steroid injections between september 2012 and June 2013 according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The contamination was traced to more than 17,000 vials from three contaminated lots of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) packaged and marketed by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. Doses from these lots were distributed to 75 medical facilities in 23 states, and administered to approximately 14,000 patients after May 21 and before September 24, 2012.

A new report published in the September issue of The American Journal of Pathology, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines 40 cases including 16 fatalities. The report indicates that all except two fatal cases had a clinical diagnosis of meningitis. Tissue specimens from infected individuals showed inflammation of the leptomeninges and blood vessel walls within the brain. Autopsy examination showed extensive hemorrhage and necrosis around the base of the brain and clots involving the basilar arterial circulation.

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Drug-induced liver injury (also called DILI or drug-induced hepatotoxicity) is a significant cause of personal injury and wrongful death in many patient populations. According to a study published in in the June issue of Gastroenterology induced liver injury is caused in 75% of cases by a single prescription, in 16% of cases by a dietary supplement and in 9% of cases by multiple agents.

The population based study performed in Iceland, demonstrated that the incidence of DILI was the highest reported to date. Lead author Einar Björnsson, Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, National University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, presents the study in the video below.

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If a child is struck by a car at a speed of 40 mph there is 70% chance that the child will be killed. If a child is struck by a car at a speed of 30 mph there is a 80% chance the child will suffer personal injury and survive.

The legislation that we discussed last week in our blog has passed. 20 new cameras will be installed near schools that experience speed issues in their vicinity. Here is the link to the statements of Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

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Installation of antimicrobial copper surface is a very effective way to fight infections and prevent personal injury due to hospital negligence. A unique study presented by the York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) at the International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) in Geneva, investigated the economic benefits of deploying antimicrobial copper touch surfaces in intensive care units (ICUs) to fight the rampant international epidemic of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) . The model is transparent and the results show rapid return on the investment.