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:

A construction worker suffered critical personal injury while working on the top of an office building in Manhattan last Tuesday afternoon around 1:30 pm. For  some reason that is still being investigated the construction worker was zapped by high voltage electricity. The man was working on the rooftop of a 29th floor landmarked office building located on Park Avenue near East 32nd Street when the accident occurred.  He was transported to the hospital in critical condition. ( Read more in the NY Daily News)

Last week another construction worker was seriously injured at the Brooklyn Navy Yard according to DNA. The accident occurred at a dry dock located at 63 Flushing Ave around 10:30 am last Thursday. The hard hat was transported to the hospital. He is now in stable condition.

The construction boom in New York City has led to a dramatic increase in construction accident injuries and deaths over the last few years, the majority of them occurring at construction sites hiring non union workers. Mayor Bill de Blasio is working on a proposal to increase training for all construction workers in an effort to decrease accidents on construction sites (see previous blog)

 

Published on:

Two people were critically injured in a car crash in New York early Wednesday morning. A reckless driver who was speeding north on Third Avenue blew a red light and crashed into a tractor trailer truck belonging to the New York City Department of Transportation. The impact was so strong that a taxi parked nearby was also hit and damaged. The taxi driver suffered serious injury and was taken to the hospital.  The driver and the passenger of the speeding car suffered critical injury. Their car was completely mangled and the FDNY had to cut the top of the car off to extricate them. They were rushed to the hospital. The driver is now in stable condition but the passenger is still clinging to his life. The truck driver wasn’t injured according to the police. Read more in the NY Daily News

Published on:

The police are still looking for a hit and run driver who almost killed a pedestrian in New York. The 36-year-old man was crossing Riverside Drive at the intersection of West 155th Street when a speeding car hit him and sped away in the night. The pedestrian suffered a fractured skull , a broken arm and a deep laceration of his head. He was in critical condition when he arrived at the hospital but he is now stable. After the accident the police said that they were chasing the driver who hit the pedestrian. They had tried to pull the driver over for a traffic violation ten blocks away.

Police chases are triggering too many crashes and often end in killing or badly injuring innocent people like this unfortunate pedestrian.  They should very limited in New York City depending upon the reason for the pursuit.

Read more on CBS New York website

Published on:

subway accident fire nycAnother subway accident occurred on Monday morning in New York. This time, 30 feet of train track trash caught fire in a tunnel between 145th street and 133rd street in Harlem. Hundreds of panicked passengers were stuck in trains as a smoky blaze developed in the tunnel. Thousands more passengers, most of them on their way to work, were stuck waiting in overcrowded sweltering subway stations.

The fire was reported this morning at 7:18 am by a subway conductor. Trains were stopped and an order was given to the subway conductor to stop the AC to prevent the smoke from being sucked into the cars by the AC system. The service was finally restored at 9:34 am. 9 passengers had to be transported to the hospital for minor injuries related to heat and smoke.

MTA Chairman and CEO Joe Lotha apologized and said the he would increase the effort in Operation Track Sweep. This operation includes 500 employees who are supposed to maintain the tracks clear from garbage.

Published on:

2 people suffered personal injury after being struck by a patrol vehicle on Long Beach in Long Island, NY. A 48-year-old man and his 36-year-old female companion, both from Hempstead, were lying on the beach among people a little bit after sunset when a cop driving a beach patrol SUV ran over them.  Both of them were transported to the hospital to be treated. The man suffered broken ribs and a bruised lung. His companion had a broken finger and a leg injury. The man was released from the hospital on Monday. The woman is still in the hospital.

The police officer, 32-year-old David Walpole, was making a three-point turn on the beach when the accident occurred. According to the police, Walpole just didn’t see the couple. The cop had driven his SUV in an area where cars usually don’t go because he was trying to prevent a large crowd from going into the ocean as the lifeguards had gone off duty a little bit earlier.Walpole has 20 years of service with the police. He was also sent to the hospital where his blood was checked for alcohol and drugs. Results came out perfectly clean.

A witness said that he was walking on the beach and thought he was hallucinating when he saw the cop car on top of a human body.

Published on:

accident sceneTwo people died and several others were injured in a NYC car accident caused by a drunk driver who was speeding. 34-year-old Andrew Shakespeare was driving back from a wedding on Sunday morning. He had 4 other passengers in his car. He was allegedly drunk and was speeding on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, NYC. As he approached the 188th street exit, Shakespeare changed lanes and side-wiped a Nissan Sentra driven by a 59-year-old woman. He then lost control of his BMW X5 SUV and careened into a Nissan Rogue driven by a 52-year-old man. Both cars crashed into the center guard rail. A 38-year-old woman driving a Mercedes was then struck by the BMW despite trying to swerve to avoid hitting the two cars. The impact sent her car into trees on the side of the road and back rolling over on the road.

The BMW front passenger, 34-year-old Layon Campbell was transported to the hospital with critical head and body injury. He was pronounced dead upon his arrival. 16-year-old Akeam Grant who was sitting on the rear right seat of the BMW died at the scene of the accident. The two other passengers, a 21-year-old and a 16-year-old survived. One of them fractured his pelvis and his right arm. The other lacerated his right arm. They were both transported to a hospital to be treated.

Among the people in the 3 other cars involved in the crash, both drivers of the Nissans were taken to the hospital for neck and back injuries but were listed in stable condition. The two passengers of the Nissan Rogue were also rushed to the hospital. The front passenger, a 50-year-old man injured his right leg. The rear passenger, a 63-year-old man fractured his rib and his neck. He also suffered from neck and back pain. Both passengers are in stable condition. The Mercedes-Benz driver was also transported to the hospital to be treated for pain in her right shoulder.

Published on:

New York Personal Injury Attorneys Rubinowitz and TorganIn their recent trial advocacy column in the New York Law Journal, New York Personal Injury Attorneys Ben Rubinowitz and Evan Torgan write: Too often trial lawyers fail to maximize key points that, if fully developed during cross, will serve not only to discredit the witness, but to anger the jurors so that they begin to question and doubt your adversary’s entire case. A thorough line of attack with respect to a lie does not simply prove that a witness was dishonest, but explores the thought process that went into concocting the lie in the first instance, the motives behind that lie, and the ultimate goal that the witness hoped to achieve by engaging in such deception.

Read the complete column here

Published on:

diseases associated to nanoparticle exposureConstruction workers who are using spray or who are power sanding wood sealant are inhaling zinc nano particles that may have negative consequences on their health. To avoid long-term injuries and illnesses a recent study found that the use of a local exhaust ventilation reduces exposure to nano particles by 92%.  A local exhaust ventilation also reduces the exposure to dust by 80%.

The study was recently published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.  The authors of the study wanted to understand if zinc oxide nano particles contained in a wood sealant were detrimental to construction workers health while spraying the sealant or when sanding it.  They conducted various tests during which a worker executed the tasks of spraying the sealant and sanding it in an environmentally controlled chamber. Various filters were installed to collect particles. Researchers also used instruments allowing them to count  real-time particle levels. They found that globally the level of nano particles was high for both activities and that a local exhaust ventilation was effective in reducing nano particles by 92%.

Researchers also wanted to know if many unbound nano particles of zinc oxide  were released during the same operation. They used electron microscopy to analyze the collected samples. They found that most nano-sized ZnO particles were contained within or on the surface of larger airborne particles. More studies are necessary to understand which level of nanoscale ZnO is detrimental to construction workers health.

Published on:

 Electronic Health RecordThe Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)  released a study on Monday that looked at 14,527 traumatic brain injury-related primary care office visits for 7284 unique patients over a period of 4 years. They found out that after physicians used a concussion management tool provided to them through the Electronic Health Records (EHR) of their patients, they perform better diagnosis and treatment. 

82% of children suffering from concussion visit a primary care physician rather than a specialist to be treated. In the study, the researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that many primary care physicians  then refer their young patients to specialists because they feel they are not properly equipped to manage Traumatic Brain Injury cases.

With the input of the primary care physicians, the researchers developed an electronic template guiding the physician through a step by step approach for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of young patients suffering from concussion injuries. The electronic tool was integrated in the Electronic Health Record of the patient. The tool provided physicians with a “concussion Smartset” allowing them to document the evolution of the patient. Physicians were trained to used the tool at various seminars organized by CHOP researchers.

Published on:

subway-derailmentA subway derailed in New York yesterday. According to the FDNY at least 34 people were injured in the accident. 17 of them were transported to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries. A baby and her asthmatic mother as well as other passengers suffered from smoke inhalation. The derailment occurred on the A train between 125th and 135th street shortly before 10:00 am. The train careened off the tracks and scraped the sides of the tunnel wall. In one of the cars a door was ripped open. The track division chairman for the Transport Workers Union, Paul Navarro, said the train “was peeled open like a can opener” According to passengers, the train started to shake violently and the lights started to flicker before the whole train was plunged into darkness and smoke. Passengers started to panic. Some used their shirts as a mask to protect themselves from inhaling the heavy smoke. They remained in darkness and in the smoke for at least 10 minutes until the conductor spoke over the intercom to announce that the train had derailed and that emergency responders were coming through the cars. Some straphangers were evacuated trough the tunnel and others through the train onto the 125th street platform.

According to preliminary investigation by the MTA, the subway derailment was caused by human error. A loose piece of rail was left on the tracks the night before by workers who were doing repair on the A line.

New Yorker’s have been used to getting delayed or stuck in subway cars countless times because of the aging subway  system but they never feared that they were in danger while riding the train. Recently passengers on the F train were stuck in a car without AC and without lights for nearly 3 hours.  However this accident is causing New Yorker’s to wonder how safe it is to ride the subway. Read more in the New York Times