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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smallerimg_0361_007The Injury Science Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)  kicked off yesterday. Every year this 10 week program sponsored by the National Science Foundation is offering to a group of  selected undergraduate students the opportunity to prepare for a career in injury science. The program is highly selective and prior to be accepted students interested in this program have to submit detailed applications on their motivations and go through an interview process.

This rigorous internship  allows each student to participate in a research project of his or her interest. Additionally each student is allocated a highly trained pediatric injury researcher as a personal mentor. This one to one mentorship program is a great opportunity for motivated students to develop their skill in injury research and have the possibility to participate in fundamental research with their mentors. Through the internship and depending on their personal interest,  students will participate in hand-on experiences in areas such as science, engineering  or statistics in the field of pediatric injury.

The idea of this program is to plant the seeds for the future and to gather a group of international motivated students that may become the future new actors in injury prevention research with a focus on youth.

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accident sceneA woman died and 3 other people suffered personal injury in a car crash in New York City early Monday. The victim was identified as 48-year-old Wazeda Banu. She was a passenger in a 2009 Nissan Sentra driven by a 51-year-old man. Another 59-year-old woman was riding with them. The trio was driving North on 164th Street near the Grand Central Parkway service road in Queens, NYC, when a 2012 Toyota Scion SUV t-boned them.  Wazeda Banu who was sitting right were the car was T-Boned was rushed to the emergency with severe chest pain. She died from her injuries at the hospital. The driver and the passenger who were riding with Wazeda Banu also suffered  injuries and were transported to the hospital. Their lives are not in danger. The 36-year-old driver of the SUV suffered minor injury and was also sent to the hospital to be treated.  The accident is still being investigated by the police.

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A worker died and another one was injured in a construction accident in Long Island, NY, last Wednesday. Edward Sinnott, an employee from the construction company Antonio and Sons, was buried to death in 15 feet of dirt. The accident occurred as the 59 year old man was standing on the top of the hole, directing the digging of a new cesspool system for a private home on Beech Place, in Hutington, NY. All of a sudden around 1pm, the cesspool collapsed, submerging Sinnott alive. Another construction worker who was standing next to him was able to survive by grabbing the bucket used to dig in the area. Crews used all types of equipment to try to find the construction worker quickly but his body was recovered  6 hours later. OSHA is now investigating the accident. The house was also reported unstable and unsafe. Read more in the Gothamist Our Partner Howard Hershenhorn recovered $3,500,000 in Suffolk County for the family of a man killed when the cesspool at his home collapsed.

 

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A motorcyclist almost lost his foot in an accident in New York City. The motorcyclist was driving on Cropsey Ave in Gravesend, Brooklyn, when he was T-boned by a speeding van. The van driver was making a left turn from Cropsey Ave onto Canal Ave. According to a witness the driver thought he could make it but instead he slammed into the motorcyclist which was driving North. The accident occured on Sunday night around 8:45 pm. The van driver stayed at the scen of the accident and wasn’t charged despite his recklessness. The motorcyclist’s leg was completely mangled and he was rushed to the hopsital. He may lose his leg according to the NY Daily News. Motorcycles being struck by left turning vehicles is all to ccomon. Drivers must be eductated to be on the lookout for motorcycles. In N.Y.C. especially motorcyclists, if possible, should slow down when entering intersections and not depend on vehicles to yield the right of way.

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Fernando Vanegaz died in a NYC construction accident18 year old Fernando Vanegaz died in a construction accident in Brooklyn, NYC, in September 2015. Two of his colleagues were also seriously injured in the accident. The construction workers were hired by  Michael Weiss an unlicensed contractor who was running an illegal construction site. Michael Weiss asked the workers to dig in an area where the NYC DOB had ordered not to excavate. The workers didn’t have much experience in excavating. When they asked for back up, the contractor ignored them. He also refused to provide any underpinning, shoring or bracing  after workers noticed a crack in a wall. Several times the workers expressed their concern about the crack in the wall, fearing for their lives. The contractor continued to ignore them. Then the tragedy happened, the wall collapsed, killing the young Fernando Vanegaz and seriously injuring two other of his co-workers. Both of them had to go through multiple surgeries for injuries to their spine, skull and facial bones.  The reckless contractor is now facing up to 15 year in prison.

Read more in the New York Times

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NYC Construction Accident Attorneys Gair Rubinowitz DonadioOur NY personal injury law firm is proud to announce that our attorneys Ben. B. Rubinowitz, Anthony H. Gair and Christopher J. Donadio obtained a $5.85 million settlement in a construction accident that occurred in Queens.

The case involved a construction worker who was injured while performing asbestos removal work on a building rooftop in Queens, NYC. He fell 15-20 feet into the building when the roof collapsed in the area where he was working.

He was rushed to North Shore University Hospital where he was diagnosed with fractures to his spine. While in the hospital, he underwent a percutaneous fusion from the T10 vertebrae to the L2 vertebrae. He remained in the hospital for three and a half weeks after the accident. Following his discharge, he underwent several months of physical therapy and also received epidural steroid injections in his lower back.

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accident scene34 year old Jonatan Segura was drunk and speeding the night he killed one pedestrian and injured another in a car accident in New York last January. Segura plead guilty to manslaughter, two counts of assault, homicide, leaving the scene, and drunk driving as well as misdemeanor assault and misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident. He is facing 4 to 12 years in prison.

On January 30th around 4:00 am, Segura was driving on 181st Street near Amsterdam Avenue when he lost control of his BMW sedan. He was drunk and he was speeding. He hit a pick-up truck and two pedestrians. One of them, Encarnation died form his injury at the hospital, the other one, a 46 year old woman was seriously injured.

Segura fled the scene of the accident on foot leaving behind him two seriously injured people and his car completely destroyed by the high speed impact.

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investigation on workers injured at Case Farms on Pro Publica TwitterOsiel Lopez Perez suffered severe personal injury while working in extremely dangerous conditions at a Case Farms chicken plant. He lost his left leg while cleaning a machine. Perez is an illegal immigrant worker. He’s 17 year old. He left Guatemala after his mother was shot by a gang that also tried to kidnap his sisters. At the time of the accident, Perez had to sanitize a liver giblet chiller. To do so he was supposed to first climb on a ladder to turn off the water valve above the machine. Because there was no ladder available, his supervisor showed him how to climb onto the machine to reach the water valve. One day, as he was standing on the machine his foot slipped into the machine which automatically started. His whole left leg was ripped off by the machine.  For years OSHA inspectors have been warning the plant about the dangerous habits of workers climbing onto the machinery for cleaning purposes.  The accident was completely preventable, simply by providing employees with ladders.

One of the biggest suppliers of chicken for the entire country, Case Farm chicken plant has a long history of abusing vulnerable immigrant workers. According to a recent investigation by  Michael Grabell from ProPublica in collaboration with the New Yorker, Case Farms chicken plants are some of the most dangerous places to work in the U.S. The company was fined $2 million in 2015 for disregarding worker safety. Over the last 7 years the company was cited 240 times for workers safety violations.

Companies that are hiring immigrants workers can be fined for doing so and employers can be sent to jail according to an immigration law that was passed by Congress 30 years ago. However this law is rarely applied, allowing abusive employers to evade responsibilities. Under The Obama Presidency, Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agreed not to go after undocumented workers during labor disputes. Will this agreement remain now that Trump took over? Workers advocates worry that ICE may ditch it. If an employee is injured and complains, employers who have a history of abusing and neglecting illegal immigrant workers may then just call ICE to have them deported.

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A 3 year old girl died in a crash involving a garbage truck in the Bronx, NYC. Sophia Aguire was riding in a car driven by her 52 year old grandfather. She was sitting in the back seat with her 27 year old mom. Her grandmother was in the passenger seat. They were driving on Bruckner Boulevard near 142nd street when the accident happened. The road was stripped for resurfacing. The driver swerved to avoid an exposed  manhole cover and got into the path of a garbage truck in the adjacent lane.  The truck hit the car, propelling it into a concrete pillar of the elevated highway just above the road. (see picture below).

The car was completely mangled. The firefighters had to cut the doors to get the victims out of it. All passengers were transported to the hospital. 3 year old Sophia died an hour later. The 3 other family members who were in the car with her only suffered minor injury.

The garbage truck driver wasn’t injured. He stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged.