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 Wrongful Death

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16 people died and 5,484 suffered personal injury in auto accidents in New York City during the month of July 2018. While the number of people dying in car accidents has been on a slightly declining trend over the last few years  in New York City, the number of people injured in such accidents has been on a rising trend. The total number of crashes is also on a rising trend:

  • In July  2013, 22 people died and 5,077 were injured in 19,384 crashes
  • In July 2014, 28 and 4,591 in 19,287 crashes
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A 47 year old motorcyclist died in an accident in New York City on Saturday. Around 4;15 pm, Julius Holloway was driving South on Mother Gaston Boulevard in Brownsville, Brooklyn, when all of sudden a car on the northbound lane made a U-Turn onto the southbound lane right in front of him. The motorcyclist didn’t have the time to brake and collided with the car.  The car was driven by a 29 year old woman. 4 other occupants were in the vehicle including a child. The motorcyclist was rushed to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved. The car occupants were also transported to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.

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accident sceneA pedestrian died in a car accident in the Bronx, NYC, after being struck by a drunk driver. The accident occurred Friday morning around 9:30 am. 33 year old Shakira Price, a teacher at Schuylerville Preparatory High School in the Bronx was drunk behind the wheel when she first crashed into a Kia driven by a 72 year old driver on Pelham Parkway. She sped away from the accident scene and the Kia driver started to chase her. As she was trying to get away from him, she struck Raymon Bolan, a 57 year old pedestrian who was trying to cross Pelham Parkway at the intersection of Eastchester Road. The man was transported to the hospital with trauma all over his body. He didn’t survive the accident. Price was taken into custody and later charged with vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated, and driving while ability impaired. Read more in the New York Post

Another pedestrian was fatally hit by a car on the FDR Drive on Saturday morning around 5:00 am. The victim, 50 year old Heward Velez of Moonachie in New Jersey, was allegedly running away from an accident that occurred a few minutes earlier. Velez was driving his Honda Civic on the northbound side of the FDR when he hit a Jeep near the 96th Street exit. Both drivers pulled over and got out of their cars to exchange information. Then Velez tried to run across the FDR. He was fatally hit by a Cadillac SUV on one of the southbound lanes.

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construction worker from New York died after a wall collapsed at a Brooklyn construction site last Wednesday. 47 year old Luis Almonte of Innwood was part of a crew of 6 construction workers who were digging into the ground with an excavator at a one-story building located on 39th street. The workers were preparing the ground for the construction of a new manufacturing and healthcare center. As they were digging, a slurry wall suddenly collapsed and buried Almonte.  The FDNY first responders searched for hours through the rubble assisted by a NYPD K9 Unit. A Con Edison truck designed to vacuum debris and soil was also used to assist the crews. The rain was making the search more difficult. The body of Luis Almonte was finally found on Thursday. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The DOB is still investigating the reason for the wall collapse. The construction site had active permits and no complaints or violations.

 

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NYC construction workers The number of construction accident fatalities in New York City recorded by the DOB doubled during the first seven months of 2018 compared to the same period of 2017. The DOB data does not include fatalities from transit and roadway projects, as well as health emergencies, that are not in DOB’s jurisdiction and usually approximately account for an additional third of the DOB numbers. These numbers are usually recorded by OSHA but are not available so far.

8 construction workers died between January 1st 2018 and July 31st 2018. The year before, 4 of them died during the same period of time. Injuries also rose by 17% from 401 to 469 while the total number of construction accidents went up 18.4% from 386 to 457.

Among the 8 workers who died, 4 of them died while working on a Manhattan construction site , 2 of them while working on a Queens site, one of them on a Brooklyn site and one of them on a Bronx site. Sadly most of these deaths might have been prevented if safety rules had been proprely implemented and respected.

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84 people including 49 pedestrians, 6 cyclists, 3 vehicle passengers and 26 vehicle drivers died in traffic accidents in New York City during the first semester. This is the lowest number of traffic deaths ever recorded in the city during the first six months of the year. Last year 96 people died in traffic accidents during the same period. It was the  first time that the number of traffic deaths was below 100 for the first six months of the year.Traffic Deaths NYC first semester 2018

While less and less people are dying in auto accidents in the city, more and more are getting injured. 28,544 people suffered injury in a crash during the first semester of 2018 compared to 27,923 during the same period of the previous year and respectively 27,540, 23,530, 24,508 and 26,119 during the first semester of 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

As part of the Vision Zero initiative, the speed limit in the city went down to 25 mph in 2014. This speed limit decrease may have been a factor in the reduction of traffic deaths and in the increase of injuries. Accidents at lower speed may prevent road users from dying, instead they are getting injured.

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Our Medical Malpractice Attorneys Jeffrey Bloom and Ben Rubinowitz represented the family  of Joan Rivers after she died during a routine endoscopy at a Manhattan surgery center. Sadly many other patients have died following complications or surgical errors at this type of center as many States still do not have regulations that may prevent them. For example in most of the country there is no law that prohibits a doctor who was laid off by a hospital for misconduct to open a surgery center.

A recent USA TODAY NETWORK and Kaiser Health News investigation found that a surgery center in Arkansas 3 people died during colonoscopy procedures in 15 weeks and none of them were reported to an oversight authority. Patients coming for procedures were obviously not aware of these deaths either. This must change.

The lack of oversight continues to kill patients at surgery centers

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Among all the States in the US, New York State has the highest rate of mothers injured while giving birth.  Many of these injuries are the direct result of hospital negligence and medical malpractice. A recent investigation by USA Today shows that not only in New York but all over America negligent medical workers skip basic safety practices that have proven to be life savers for mothers.

Weighing blood pads to track dangerous hemorrhages as well as controlling blood pressure and if necessary immediately providing medication to prevent strokes are basic procedures that protect a mother about to give birth. However in the US many nurses, doctors and hospitals continue to ignore them. As a result while in most developed countries the rate of maternal deaths and injuries dropped drastically over the last decades, it rose sharply in the US.

maternal deaths in developed countries
Excepted for California where safe practices have been implemented, hospitals in other Sates continue to ignore basic safety practices.  As a result, every day in the US, 2 mothers die from complications related to delivery. Many of them bleed to death because doctors and nurses don’t bother to quantify blood losses. Many others die from stroke because the hospital staff didn’t track their blood pressure or didn’t provide blood pressure medication on time. Most of these deaths are preventable. Experts estimate that 93% of the deaths related to bleeding could be avoided by quantifying blood loss and 60% of the deaths related to blood pressure disorder could be prevented simply by proprely monitoring blood pressure.

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location of the bike accidentA motorcyclist was seriously injured and his passenger died after they collided with a car in New York City on Sunday night.

The accident occurred in Howard Beach, Queens, around 9:00 pm. The 28 old driver and a 33 year old passenger were riding their motorcycle on 162nd Street. As they were crossing the intersection of 162nd Street and Cross Bay Boulevard they collided with a car making a left turn from Cross Bay Boulevard onto 162nd Street.

The car was driven by a 19 year old woman who was transporting two passengers.

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Injuries are the leading cause of death among New York children. A recent report published by the New York Health Department looks at the trend in injury deaths for children ages 1 to 12 in New York City from 2006 to 2015.

The study shows that in the majority of cases, injuries that resulted in the death of a child in New York City were unintentional. In 2015, for example, among the 22 children who died from injury, 18 were unintentional deaths and 4 were homicides. No suicides were recorded that year. Suicides represent the smallest part of children injury deaths in New York City.

The number of children injury deaths was at its highest in 2006 and at its lowest in 2011 and 2015. Over the last 10 years it has been on a declining trend.