A 46 year old employee of the Flatbush Ave. Stop & Shop in Brooklyn was severely injured while cleaning a bottle machine return (reverse vending machine). As he was trying to reach for some glass in the machine, his hand got trapped and badly mutilated by the machine.
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In the State of New York, chain retailers selling packaged drinks are required by law to have two reverse vending machines installed on the premises of each of their locations.
Brooklyn Car Accident Prevention: New York State Department of Transportation delays $200,000 plan to slow down traffic at deadly intersection
Last Monday a woman died when she was struck by a truck and fell underneath the rear wheels of the tractor-trailer as it was turning onto onto Prospect Expressway in Kensington, Broolyn, New York. The intersection that once again proved to be very dangerous for pedestrians has been waiting for New York Department of Transportation to install a pedestrian island on Ocean Parkway near Church Ave at the entrance of the expressway.
Brooklyn Bicycle Accident: man struck by a truck dies in hospital
A 68 year old man was riding his bike on Sixth Ave in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York when he was hit by a truck. After the accident, the driver stepped out of his truck and looked around and drove away from the scene leaving the victim to die according to the New York Daily News. The driver told the police that he didn’t know that he hit anyone and that he had stopped to ask directions.
Brooklyn is New York’s deadliest place for fatal traffic accidents. In 2011 (most recent statistics available), 79 people died in car crashes in Brooklyn compared to 45 in Manhattan, 65 in the Bronx and 67 in Queens.
Bronx Medical Malpractice Prevention – Reducing Hospital Negligence – Better Patient follow up decreases Hospital Re-admission rate from 26.3% to 17.6%
The Bronx collaborative, a group of hospital and medical insurers demonstrated in a study that patients who were participating in a special program to manage transition between hospital and home were less likely to be re-admitted to hospitals than patients who received the current standard care.
Medical problems that lead to hospital re-admissions can often be prevented by personal contacts with patients before and after their discharge. Intensive pre-discharge education, post discharge follow up appointment with the physician and phone calls to review medication and discuss concerns are significantly lowering the re-admission rate and improving patient satisfaction.
20% of adolescents suffered Traumatic Brain Injury in their lifetime and 5.6% suffered TBI in the last 12 months
Prevalence of Traumatic Brain Injury among adolescents may be much higher than previously known according to an innovative study that focuses on 7-12 grades students and include all self-reported TBIs. Previous studies have been mostly based on hospital records leaving many head injuries uncounted because they were not reported to parents, teachers, sports coaches or health care workers.
The study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health contains responses from almost 9,000 students from Grades 7-12 in publicly funded schools across Ontario and is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The report shows that approximately half of traumatic brain injuries happened during sport activities and also links alcohol and cannabis consumption as well as low grades to a higher risk of traumatic brain Injury.
Personal Injury & Wrongful Death – New England Compounding Center meningitis outbreak is the largest reported outbreak of fungal infections associated with contaminated steroid injections
745 people have been infected and 58 have died from an outbreak of fungal meningitis associated with epidural steroid injections between september 2012 and June 2013 according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The contamination was traced to more than 17,000 vials from three contaminated lots of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) packaged and marketed by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. Doses from these lots were distributed to 75 medical facilities in 23 states, and administered to approximately 14,000 patients after May 21 and before September 24, 2012.
A new report published in the September issue of The American Journal of Pathology, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examines 40 cases including 16 fatalities. The report indicates that all except two fatal cases had a clinical diagnosis of meningitis. Tissue specimens from infected individuals showed inflammation of the leptomeninges and blood vessel walls within the brain. Autopsy examination showed extensive hemorrhage and necrosis around the base of the brain and clots involving the basilar arterial circulation.
Medical Malpractice – Amoxicillin-clavulanate (Augmentin) is the most common cause of Drug Induced Liver Injury (DILI)
Drug-induced liver injury (also called DILI or drug-induced hepatotoxicity) is a significant cause of personal injury and wrongful death in many patient populations. According to a study published in in the June issue of Gastroenterology induced liver injury is caused in 75% of cases by a single prescription, in 16% of cases by a dietary supplement and in 9% of cases by multiple agents.
The population based study performed in Iceland, demonstrated that the incidence of DILI was the highest reported to date. Lead author Einar Björnsson, Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, National University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, presents the study in the video below.
Personal Injury Prevention: in a severe side car crash accident, today’s cars are offering superior protection to passengers thanks to very strong safety cages limiting intrustion into the compartment and standards side air bags protecting vital organs
Side car crash test shows that car occupants are better protected than 10 years ago in severe side crash accidents. See below the new video from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
New York Car Accident Prevention: Bill authorizes Use of Speed Camera at 20 School locations with documented speeding issues within a quarter-mile of schools
If a child is struck by a car at a speed of 40 mph there is 70% chance that the child will be killed. If a child is struck by a car at a speed of 30 mph there is a 80% chance the child will suffer personal injury and survive.
The legislation that we discussed last week in our blog has passed. 20 new cameras will be installed near schools that experience speed issues in their vicinity. Here is the link to the statements of Mayor Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.
Medical Malpractice – Hospital Negligence: the cost of replacing 6 frequently-touched near patient surfaces in a 20-bed ICU with antimicrobial copper can be recouped in 2 months, based on less infection and shorter stays
Installation of antimicrobial copper surface is a very effective way to fight infections and prevent personal injury due to hospital negligence. A unique study presented by the York Health Economics Consortium (YHEC) at the International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) in Geneva, investigated the economic benefits of deploying antimicrobial copper touch surfaces in intensive care units (ICUs) to fight the rampant international epidemic of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) . The model is transparent and the results show rapid return on the investment.