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.
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kipp logo48 year old Jesus Conception, a Bronx teacher, sexually abused students as young as 12 according to federal prosecutors. According to the New York Daily News, The man was a well known former middle school orchestra conductor at KIPP Academy. However allegations of abuse emerged in 2017 and the school cooperated with law enforcement to catch the preparator.

Jesus Conceprion who was raised in the Bronx and earned a degree at Julliard School was acclaimed by media as the most amazing teacher and orchestra conductor (see New York Times). However, Conception took advantage of his notoriety and power to prey on young victims. The man would identify students he thought were vulnerable and offer them gifts such as phones, money or alcohol and make them believe they were involved in a “romantic” relationship with him. Sexual abuse took place at school, in motel rooms and in his car, not only in New York but also in other states according to court documents.

Victims of child sexual abuse older than 55 year old have until August 14 to file a complaint under the New York Child Victim’s Act

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Ventricular_assist_device (1)Medtronic stopped the sale of the defective HeartWare Ventricular Assist Device, or HVAD last June after more than 3,000 patients died and 20,000 were injured.

Since 2011, multiple problems with the device have been reported to the Food and Drug Administration but the agency never took any decisive action to make sure the manufacturer  fixed the problems. The FDA and its Center for Devices and Radiological Health are in charge of making sure that medical devices are safe and effective for patients however as we highlighted in a previous blog, the agency policy is too accommodating with manufacturers. It has the power to seize products or to issue fines but rarely uses it.

In the case of the HeartWare Ventricular Assist Device, the FDA knew about issues with the product as early as 2011 when the product was developed by the parent company HeartWare and was seeking FDA approval. An inspector mentioned in its report that engineers were not reviewing documents fully before approving them and that the employee assigned to quality control did not have sufficient training. The company told the FDA they would take corrective actions.

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FDA-logoMany defective medical devices might still be used by medical professionals because deaths that occurred when using these devices are being mislabeled as injuries in the FDA Medical Database according to a study published last week in JAMA Network. The study looked at 290,141 reports of defective medical devices that resulted in serious injuries or deaths that were processed by an algorithm. They found that 52% were classified as deaths and 47.9% were classified by the algorithm as malfunction, injury, other or missing. Among these 47.9% that were not classified as death, 23% of these reports were indeed death reports that were not classified proprely by the algorithm. As a result many deadly devices might still be used on patients.  The FDA must review all reports classified as death but does not routinely review all reports that are classified as other or misfunction.

The most dangerous of all medical devices were the ventricular assist bypass devices. These devices represented 13% of all adverse event reports. Coming in second position was the dialysate concentrate for hemodialysis in liquid or in powder with 8.7% of all adverse event reports. The third most reported defective devices were the transcervical contraceptive tubal occlusion devices with 5% of all adverse reports.

The authors of the study also mention that 95% of the adverse event reports were made by manufacturers and not by healthcare facilities or physicians which might constitute a conflict of interest. The authors note that delays in reporting serious injuries or deaths were common. An example of this issue was the Essure permanent birth control device. 32,000 women reported issues with this device between 2002 and 2013 while the FDA only received 1,023 reports.

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injured hand of an elderly patientIn New York State, many nursing home residents are neglected because the facilities are significantly understaffed.  Most nursing homes are run by corporations that are more interested in increasing their shareholder profit rather than making sure their residents are proprely taken care off. Additionally,  the staff is so poorly paid, between $12.50 Upstate NY  to $15 an hour in New York City, that it is difficult to recruit people especially during the pandemic. In comparison, fast food workers are making $14.50 an hour in New York.

New laws signed to prevent understaffing will only take effect next year

Recently Andrew Cuomo signed new laws requiring nursing home and hospitals to form clinical staffing committees that include front-line nurses and other direct care staff when setting annual staffing standards for units. Additionally, nursing home facilities will be required to have a minimum daily average of 3 1/2 hours of nursing care per resident. These two laws will only take effect in January 22 and do not include a raise in the minimum wage for workers (read more in Healthcare Dive)

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accident sceneTwo men died in a two separate motorcycle accidents in Brooklyn, NYC, this week-end. A woman who was a passenger in one of the accidents is in critical condition. The first accident took place on the Williamsburg Bridge on Saturday night, around 9:40 pm. 48 year old Khayyam Jackson was riding his motorcycle at high speed going toward Brooklyn. As he was trying to pass a car he rear-ended it and as a result lost control of his bike and careened into a pillar of the bridge. The impact was so strong that the motorcycle driver was killed in the accident. The driver of the car remained at the scene of the accident and was not charged.

A few hours later, early Sunday morning, around 2:15 am, 30 year old David Fuller-Gist was riding his motorcycle with a 24 year female passenger on Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights when he lost control of his bike. He crashed into a pillar of the elevated Long Island Rail Road tracks at the intersection of Troy Ave. Both riders were rushed to the hospital. David passed away and the female passenger was in critical condition. (Read more in the NY Daily News )

Speeding BMW driver  kills 77 year old woman on the Van Wick Expressway

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A man suffered severe burns in a sidewalk explosion in Queens last week.

57 year old Barry West was heading to his T-mobile store to pay his cell phone bill when a Coned underground transformer exploded sending a ball of fire through the sidewalk grate. The man was engulfed in the flames before he was able to move to safety. He suffered second degree burns in multiple areas of his face and body and was immediately hospitalized.  The man was still in the hospital a week after the accident. He told the NY Daily News that the explosion just came from nowhere. He felt he lost a lot of skin and was in so much pain that he could not work.

A similar explosion occurred at the same location exactly one day earlier and partially destroyed the front of a pizzeria next door  (read more and see video of the accident in the NY Daily News).

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injured hand of an elderly patientA policy instituted in 2017 that restricted fines to a maximum one-time amount of $22,320 to nursing homes violating safety standards, even if violations were persisting, has been reversed.

The reversal of the policy comes 6 months after the AAARP Foundation filed a Lawsuit with the help of  a Washington based law firm to fight this policy.

The 2017 policy  instituted by the Federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) endangered the lives of nursing home residents as well as their employees.

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location of the bee-line bus accident in the Bron NY11 people were injured including one critically after an articulated bus of the Bee-line system from Westchester county crashed into a pillar of the elevated subway line on Jerome Avenue near the intersection of East 213th Street in the Bronx, NYC. The bus was serving the 4 line and transporting passengers between Yonkers and Bedford Park in the Bronx. A car that previously collided with another one slammed into the bus pushing it into the pillar.

One 69 year old man in critical condition

Some of the bus accident victims were taken to the hospital by EMS, others were treated at the scene.  Among them, was the driver of the bus who was put on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital. The bus drivers told witnesses that 3 people were more injured than he was. A 69 year old man who suffered critical traumatic brain injury is in critical condition. He also said he was a veteran driver who was planning to retire next year and never had an accident in his entire career as a bus driver.

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A total of 118 people including 39 motorists, 16 motor vehicle passengers, 5 cyclists and 58 pedestrians lost their life in crashes in New York City during the first six months of 2021. This is the highest number of traffic accident fatalities during the first semester since 2013 when 121 people died in crashes. During the 7 following years, after Vision Zero was launched in 2014, auto fatalities declined and oscillated around 100 during the first six months of the year with their lowest at 84 deaths during the first semester of 2018.

traffic accident fatalities NYC 1st semester 2021
New York City auto accident injuries were lower than usual during the first semester of 2021. Since the beginning of the pandemic last year, less people have been on the road in the city which might explain the decline in injuries. A total of 22,898 people were injured. Among them were 10,975 motorists, 6,492 passengers, 2,303 cyclists and 3,128 pedestrians.

traffic accident injuries new york 1st sem 2021
Pedestrian fatalities were at their highest since 2014 last semester with 58 deaths compared to respectively, 37, 51, 49, 49, 56, 34, 60 and 72 during the first six months of 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.It is very disappointing that after 7 years of  multiple Vision Zero initiatives, the number of pedestrian fatalities is back at its 2014 level. Are more pedestrians dying because the streets are still less busy than usual and more people are speeding or driving in a reckless manner?

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location of the dump truck accident in Brooklyn, NYCA scooter rider was fatally struck by a dump truck in Brooklyn, NYC, yesterday morning. The accident took place at the dangerous intersection of Canton Avenue and East 7th Street in Kensington, Brooklyn.  The scooter rider that was killed yesterday was identified as 27 year old Frederico Zaput Palsa.  The young man was working at the time of the accident, making a delivery for the pan-Asian restaurant Dao Palate in Park Slope. The truck driver, a 42 year old man, remained at the scene of the accident and so far has not been charged.

Both the dump truck and the scooter were trying to go around a double-parked car

According to the preliminary report of the Police, the scooter rider and the truck driver were both going East on Canton Avenue, the collision occurred as both the scooter and the truck were trying to go around a double-parked car.  Zaput Palax suffered a critical head injury and died at the scene of the accident.  His 21 year old brother, Alfonso was heartbroken. He told the News that he had already lost another brother to Covid19 last year.  Frederico  was the father of two sons and one daughter who live in Guatemala.

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