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 Personal Injury

Published on:

In New York State, cell phone related car accidents have increased by 143% from 2005 to 2011. In 2011, there were 25,165 fatal and personal injury crashes involving distracted driving in New York, compared to 4,628 caused by alcohol-related driving.

Governer Cuomo wants to crack down on drivers who are using their cell phones while they are driving and put their life and the lives of others at risk. Therefore the governor of New York just announced that texting while driving will cost 5 points instead of 3 for all drivers effective June 1st. Adding to that drivers with probationary or junior licences will get 60-day suspensions for a first conviction and revocations of 60 days (for junior licenses) or 6 months (for probationary licenses) for subsequent convictions within 6 months of the time a license is restored after suspension.

Published on:

The new CPSC Pool or Spa Submersions: Estimated Injuries and Reported Fatalities, 2013 Report indicate that 75% of victims of drowning in a pool or spa are younger than 5 years old. Government data also show that the majority of African American and Hispanic children between 5 and 14 years old don’t know how to swim and therefore have a much higher risk of drowning in a pool.

Every year more than 5000 children visit the emergency room after a pool or spa related injury and an estimated average of 390 children drown. Most of the accidents happen in backyard pools.

Submersion%20injuries.png

In its new pool safety campaign, The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is asking parents and families to teach their children how to swim, to install a fence around backyard pools and spas and to watch children when they play around the pool.

Published on:

Diagnostic errors are not a new problem, in 1991 the Harvard medical Practice Study, investigated Medical Malpractice in New York Hospitals and found out that diagnostic errors were accounting for 14% of physicians errors and that 75% of them were due to doctors negligence.

In 1999 a study from the Institute of Medicine “To Err is Human”, looks at diagnostic errors and classifies them in four different categories: error or delay in diagnosis, failure to employ indicated tests, use of outmoded tests or therapy and failure to act on results of monitoring or testing.

Despite these studies, diagnostic errors have been largely ignored until recent research calculated the impact of such errors. Results from a 2009 report funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality showed that 28% of diagnostic mistakes were life-threatening or had resulted in death or permanent disability.

Published on:

Recreational Water Illnesses (RWI) mostly caused by germs in contaminated water as well as personal injury such as drowning, slips, trips and falls occur every summer in pools, jacuzzis, water parks, water play areas, interactive fountains or lakes, rivers and recreational areas at the ocean. In order to prevent these illnesses and injuries the Center for Disease Control is running its annual prevention campaign as Memorial Day marks the annual pool and beach season’s opening day. This year’s theme is “How We Swimmers Contaminate Pools

water%20disease.jpg

A recent study from the CDC that analyzed filter backwash samples found e-coli in more than 58% of the samples. This rate goes up to 73% when patrons are primarily children. Detection of E-coli signifies that swimmers introduce fecal material in the water either by washing off of their bodies or because of a diarrheal fecal incident. The latest is the most dangerous because it increases the risk for pathogen transmissions. Other very common germs brought by fecal material in pool or water play areas are Cryptosporidium or Crypto, Giardia, Shigella and Norovirus, according to the latest Surveillance for Waterborne Disease Outbreaks and Other Health Events Associated with Recreational Water Summary.

Published on:

Severely injured women are 21% less likely to receive appropriate care in a trauma center than men. Results are similar for women injured after a fall or a car accident, across all income levels and also when comparing rural versus urban patients according to a study , led by Andrea Hill, MSc, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow at the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre and the University of Toronto in Canada, and presented yesterday at the American Thoracic Society International Conference .

The researchers studied more than 98,800 patients admitted to trauma centers for severe injuries. Results show that 49.6% of women and 63.2% of men received care after being severely injured.

Published on:

young%20workers%20accident%20prevention.jpgEvery 9 minutes a young worker suffers injury at work. In 2010, 328 teens died and 110’000 were injured at their workplace. Most accidents are due to unsafe equipment, insufficient training and supervision, dangerous work not appropriate for teens, pressure to perform better and stressful environment. Accidents happen mostly in retail, restaurant & fast food, cleaning & maintenance, outdoor work, construction, industry, agriculture and in offices. There is an increase of accidents in the summer as young people are finishing school and starting a new job or simply trying to make a little extra money during their vacations.

Young workers are twice as likely to get hurt on the job than older workers and often they are not aware of their rights. For this reason OSHA just launched a campaign that includes a special young workers web section as well as specific brochures for young workers on landscaping, retail work and grain engulfment. Brochures on landscaping and retail also exist in Spanish

Published on:

Raechel and Jacqueline Houck died driving a rental car that had been recalled for a power steering hose defect but had not been repaired. The car caught fire because of the defect while traveling on the highway, causing a loss of steering and a head-on collision with a semi-trailer truck.

To make sure this tragedy is not repeated, U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) have introduced a bill that would ban rental car companies from renting cars that have been recalled by manufacturers. The bill is named in memory of the two sisters who tragically died in a rental car that had been recalled by the manufacturer but wasn’t repaired by the rental car company (see picture).
Hearing in the Senate is planned for May 21st.

Published on:

In New York City, some 70,000 motor vehicle crashes are reported every year and among them 250 are fatal crashes, 3000 crashes lead to serious personal injury . 10,000 crashes involved pedestrians struck by a car or another vehicle such as a bus or a truck.

Slow%20Zone.jpgIn order to reduce the frequency and the severity of these crashes the New York City Department of Transport has been running a Community based Neighborhood Slow Zone Program. Last year a dozen neighborhoods in the city had their application accepted and a speed limit of 20 mph with signage, gateways as well as speed bumps is being implemented this year. New Applications can now be filed by communities until the end of this month.

Many cities in Europe are already running this type of program. In London Slow Zone program saw a reduction a more that 40 % of fatal and severe injury crashes and the average speed in theses area will now be reduced to 9 mph. In the Netherlands crashes dropped by 25% in slow zones and in Barcelona by 27%. Similar results are expected in New York City’s newly created Slow Zones.

Published on:

A new inexpensive prototype device provides non invasive and instant diagnosis of brain injury to determine if the brain is swelling or if it is bleeding.The device can be combined with a cell phone for remote diagnosis according to a new study from University of California, Berkeley.

Brain%20trauma%20diagnostic.jpgA research team led by Boris Rubinsky, Professor of the Graduate School at UC Berkeley’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and César A. Gonzáleza professor in Mexico at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Escuela Superior de Medicina (National Polytechnic Institute’s Superior School of Medicine) has developed a new technology using wireless signal that could transform brain injury diagnostics.

A prototype was tested in a pilot study involving healthy adults, and patients with brain damage. The engineers fashioned an helmet-like device that was broadcasting electromagnetic signals through the brain. Based on the signal received the researchers were able to identify which patient was suffering from a brain injury and which patient was healthy. Signals were able to differentiate brain edemas, for which swelling results from an increase in fluid in the tissue, from brain hematomas, which are internal bleeding causing the buildup of blood in certain regions of the brain.

Published on:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection is caused by a specific staph bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics and therefore very difficult to treat. If not diagnosed on time MRSA can be life threatening. MRSA is a major concern for hospitals where the superbug can attack older patients or those suffering from weakened immune system. Patients necessitating medical tubing such as intravenous line or catheters are also at risk as well as patients staying in nursing homes. MRSA is also an issue in child care centers, military camps and jails.

There is an urgent need to find therapeutic ways to fight this superbug. In research appearing in the Journal PLOS ONE , Shelley Haydel, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute demonstrate that particular metal ions attached to the clay may have the potential to kill MRSA as well as a range of other dangerous pathogens including E-coli. Medical property of clay has been recognized since antiquity when it was used for its wound healing property.