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

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NYC Best Personal Injury Law Firm Congratulations to all our attorneys and staff for making our firm one of the Best Personal Injury Law Firms in New York. For the ninth consecutive year, Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf has been recognized by U.S. News Media Group, the publishers of U.S. News & World Report, and Best

Lawyers® as a top tier firm in the New York City Metropolitan Area for

  • Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs
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NYC ambulance accidents3 people suffered personal injury in an ambulance accident in New York City. The accident occurred Tuesday morning around 7:30 a.m. on East Fordham Road at Elm Place. The FDNY ambulance careened into an optical store after it collided with a car. The ambulance was on its way to a call. Two FDNY workers who were in the ambulance as well as one of the car occupants were injured and rushed to the hospital. Thankfully there were no pedestrians on the sidewalk or in the store which was closed.

Ambulance accidents are unfortunately occurring too often in New York City. Despite having special exemption from stopping at red-lights and stop signs as well as from speed limits ambulance drivers still have to be mindful of pedestrians, cyclists and other motor vehicles. Pedestrians and cyclists are especially vulnerable to being run down by speeding ambulances. When such accidents occur, it is not always easy for the victims or their family to get proper compensation for their injuries or the loss of a loved one because of what is known as the “emergency doctrine” pursuant to which emergency responders involved in accidents  on emergency calls can’t be held responsible unless they drove with reckless disregard for the safety of others.

Almost 100 ambulance accidents every month in NYC

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le5 BODY CAMERAA potentially defective lithium-Ion battery in Vievu-brand LE-5  body camera led the NYPD to pull almost 3,000 body cameras from use.

The decision was made after one of the cameras worn by a Staten Island police officer exploded into flames.  The officer who was assigned to a midnight shift  in the 121st Precinct on the northwestern shore of Staten Island suddenly noticed smoke coming out of his body camera. Thankfully he wasn’t injured in the accident. He just had the time to remove the camera and to drop it on the ground in the precinct before it exploded and caught fire. After the incident, all officers wearing the same model of camera were instructed to immediately remove them and bring them back to their commands. The NYPD had around 15,000 cameras in use and only the Vievu LE-5 is being recalled. The previous version Vievu LE-4 which is also used by some of the police officers is not recalled. Officers who were wearing the LE-5 model will temporally work without body cameras.

CONTROVERSIAL DECISION 

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In our previous blog we provided an overview of the cost of personal injury in the US based on various criteria mostly related to the patients. In part 2 we are going to look in depth at the cost of each particular type of injuries.

Unintentional injuries are by far the most common. More than 26 million people suffered unintentional injury in the US in 2013 according to the study “Incidence and costs of injuries to children and adults in the United States”. The total cost of these injuries almost reached $1.5 trillion.

Number-of-injuries-per-type
Cost of injury per type
Among the unintentional injuries, a third of them were falls. Every year more than 8 million people are visiting the emergency room after falling. More than 3 million are being treated because they were struck and approximately 2.5 million were motor vehicle occupants involved in a traffic accident. Another very common cause of unintentional injury is overexertion.

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What does an injury really cost, not only in terms of medical spending but also in terms of work loss and decreased quality of life? A recent study by researchers from Brown University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and published in the Journal of Injury Epidemiology provides an economic analysis of the “real cost” of all 31,038,072 hospital-treated injuries in the US in 2013. While most previous studies on injury cost focus mostly on the acute medical cost they don’t address the cost of the burden of injury.

The study found that one American out of 10 visited the hospital for a non-fatal injury during the year under study. Medical spending including hospital and home care, emergency transportation, medicines and physical therapy for all of them came to a total of $168 billion. Future lost work from permanent disability came to a total of $223 billion and quality of life loss came to a total of $1,46 trillion.

The study also provide an in-depth analysis of the cost of injury by age, household income, payer, location, injury mechanism, intent and severity.

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Personal Injury Attorney Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner Ben Rubinowitz will be a faculty member of the  “Weekend with the Stars: The Power of Persuasion” seminar organized by the American Association for Justice and presented by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. The seminar will take place at the Westin New York in Time Square on December 7th and December 8th 2018. This year the seminar will focus on modern or innovative trial advocacy techniques. Participants will learn:

  • To maximize their impact with storyboards
  • To build a successful foundation for a winning case
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diabetic-medicineThe rising prices of insulin has lead diabetes patients to cut back on insulin or to buy it on the black market putting them at risk of dangerous injury and even death. In 1996, a vial of Humalog insulin cost $21, it now costs close to $400. While the price of milk increased by 23%, over the last 20 years, the price of insulin increased by 1150%.

A mother interviewed by CBS New York said that even though she has insurance for her diabetic daughter, she has to pay $1300 out of pocket every 3 months. Other patients are turning to the black market where they can find insulin for much cheaper. This practice is dangerous as unscrupulous dealers might sell fake products that can have deadly consequences.

A recent study by Yale  researchers also found out that many patients are cutting on their insulin dose to try to save money. As a result they are exposing themselves to dangerous levels of glucose in the blood which ultimately can lead to death.

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Last Halloween, a terrorist driving a rental truck plowed into bicyclists and pedestrians on the Greenway bike path along the West Side Highway near Battery Park. In his act of terror, Sayfullo Saipov killed 8 people and injured 13 others after he entered the bike path  North of Chambers Street and drove 14 blocks down the path, striking bicyclists and pedestrians on his way.  The police were able to stop him after he slammed into a school bus at the Chambers Street intersection and tried to run away on foot.

According to the authorities, Saipov was inspired by the Islamic Sate group when he committed his act of terror. He is now behind bars and held without bail. He pleaded not guilty but the federal prosecutors announced on Friday that they are seeking the death penalty which is extremely rare in New York. The last time it occurred was in 1953 for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Our firm represents most of the victims of the terror attack and while this decision by the  federal prosecutors will satisfy the families of the victims it will never make up for their losses.

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5 young pedestrians from Long Island, NY, were injured in a car accident involving a drunk driver. On Sunday afternoon, 59 year old, Thomas Murphy was drunk behind the wheel of his Mercedes when he struck a group of 5 boy scouts walking on the shoulder of David Terry Road in Shoreham. The boys aged from 12 to 16 year old were all injured in the accident, one of them so badly that he had to be transported to the hospital by helicopter. The driver was charged with driving while intoxicated and was held overnight at the police station. The 5 boys, including the one who was critically injured, are expected to survive. They were on their way to a hike onto the Greenbelt Trail in Manorville organized by Troop 161 in Shoreham when the accident occurred.  Read more in NewsDay

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An 18 year old driver died and his 22 year old female passenger is in critical condition following a terrible crash in the Bronx, NYC. The teenager was driving his car on the Hutchinson Parkway in the Bronx around 2:30 am on Monday. As he was near the New England Thruway he sideswiped a BMW with his Subaru and then crashed into a tree. His car was completely mangled. He and his passenger were both transported to the hospital. He was declared dead when he arrived. The passenger was listed in critical condition.

Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of deaths for teenagers in America in front of suicide, homicide and cancer. Every year around 3000 teenagers are killed in car accidents and thousands more are injured . According to statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 16 to 19 year old drivers are 3 times more likely to die in a car accident than drivers 20-year-old and above. 2/3 of the teens who are killed in car accidents are boys. Distracted driving and underage drinking are often a factor.