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 Tagged with personal injury

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Protect construction workers from winter injuriesDuring the winter, New York construction workers face difficult conditions  that put them at risk of specific injuries. Contractors are responsible for their workers safety and they should take extra precautions to protect them from cold related injuries.

The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) just released a serie of infographics in English and Spanish that can be used by contractors to make sure their employees are taking special precautions to protect themselves from winter injuries.

Workers should dress appropriately and contractors should make sure that they provide a heated area for their workers where they can take frequent breaks and drink plenty of warm and sweet beverages. Caffeine and of course alcohol should be avoided.

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US deaths from Methylene ChlorideMethylene Chloride is a dangerous product that has previously caused the death of many people. Short term exposure to methylene chloryde can cause mental confusion, nausea, vomiting , headache and death in the worst cases. In the long term, workers exposed to it can develop cancer, nervous system problems, toxicity in their kidney, liver and reproductive system.Major retailers such as Lowes and Home Depot have removed it from their shelves even before the EPA finalized a ban proposal that was published one day before President Obama left office.  In Europe the deadly chemical was pulled from general use in 2011.

Last May, Scott Pruit confirmed that the EPA was committed to finalize the proposed methylene chloride ban however last month the EPA drafted two new final rules that would ban the use of methylene chloryde to regular consumers but not to commercial operators.  Two new final rules drafted by the EPA allow the usage of the dangerous product for commercial use as long as the workers using it have been trained.  These rules that have not been made public yet but that have been sent by the EPA to the Office of Management and Budget have sparked the furor of public health advocates and and of congressional Democrats. This is a major step back compared to the proposed rule announced by the EPA during the Obama era.

Workers specialized in refinishing bathtubs are the most at risk of dying from Methylene Chloride exposure

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respiratory test set upThe dust generated on construction sites can have adverse health effects on construction workers. Different activities on construction sites can generate different types of nanoparticles and ultrafine particles that can lead to serious respiratory diseases such as silicosis and lung cancer. To prevent these diseases the NIOSH recommend that workers use N95 respirators. However according to a recent pilot study conducted by the Center for Construction and Research Training (CPWR), these respirators might not protect construction workers properly depending on the task that they execute.

The CPWR used two manikins fitted with two types of  NIOSH approved N95 masks, the pleated N95 mask and the foldable N95 and assessed their respiratory protection against ultrafine particles and nanoparticles in various construction environments.

The researchers first found out that it was very difficult to get the N95 masks themselves as they were out of stock or back ordered for several weeks and substitutes had to be used for the studies.

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Netflix notice to prevent injuries
The new internet Bird Box Challenge can lead to serious injury. Named after a new Netflix horror movie starring Sandra Bullock during which the characters have to live their life blindfolded to avoid invisible creatures, the Bird Box Challenge has regular people and also many celebrities filming themselves doing all kinds of activities blindfolded.

While some keep it pretty much safe such as Michael Strahan from Good Morning America trying to put lipstick on Sara Haines while blindfolded, others like actors Jake Paul and George Janko even attempted to drive blindfolded during a 24h challenge. Some parents have been involving their children and some choking videos emerged of  children bumping into the walls or destroying furniture.

The challenge became so popular that Netflix had to issue a warning asking people not to put their life in danger for this challenge.

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Medical Malpractice Attorney Christopher_DonadioOur Personal Injury Law Firm is proud to announce that our attorney Christopher J. Donadio obtained a $3 million verdict in a medical malpractice case in New Jersey.

The case involved a 74 year old plaintiff who sought treatment with a gastroenterologist due to a cyst on his pancreas. After visiting the gastroenterologist, the plaintiff underwent a blood test to check for evidence of cancer, but did not undergo any further testing. Sixteen months later, the plaintiff underwent testing due to his inability to control his blood sugar. It was determined at that time that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately, the plaintiff passed away from his cancer eleven months after being diagnosed.

A claim was brought against the treating gastroenterologist for failing to recommend further testing for the plaintiff’s pancreatic cyst. Plaintiff claimed that had further testing been done, specifically an endoscopic ultrasound, the pancreatic cancer would have been diagnosed sixteen months earlier and would have given him a much better chance at surviving the disease. A claim was also brought against a radiologist who plaintiff claimed failed to point out worrisome features of the pancreatic cyst when reviewing a CT scan of the abdomen.

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Dragon's_breathDipping dessert items into liquid nitrogen right before consumption can cause severe injury and should be avoided. A trendy dessert called Dragon Breath, Heaven’s Breath or Nitro Puff that consists of a cereal snack that taste like fruit loops dipped into liquid nitrogen right before consumption is being sold at malls, fairs, food courts or ice cream parlors. When you eat the dessert your mouth smokes like a dragon which makes for some cool Instagram pictures. However liquid nitrogen even though it is not toxic can cause severe injuries if not handled proprely because of its extremely low temperature. It can be as cold as minus 320 degrees and if it is still present in the food when someone ingests it it can cause severe burns to tissues.  Not only fingers but the mouth or the throat and even the stomach can be burned. Last year a 14 year old had to be hospitalized after burning her thumb. In India a man who swallowed a cocktail with liquid Nitrogen too quickly ended up at the emergency room with a hole in his stomach.

Dangerous for people with asthma too

Additionally people may also experience problems with breathing especially those who suffer from asthma. In the video below a mother explained how her son, 20 minutes after ingesting a few dragon breath treats at a fair went into a full blown asthma crisis and had to transported to the hospital to be treated.

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NYC construction workers Failure to provide fall protection to workers  continues to be the most frequent violation found by OSHA inspectors while visiting construction sites or any other work site of other industries. From October 1st 20017 to September 20 2018, OSHA issued 7,270 violations to employers who failed to provide their employees with appropriate fall protection. Falls are also the number one cause of death on American construction sites. One of the most serious violators was Kasper Roofing & Construction in Florida. OSHA proposed a fine of $134,510 after the death of a roofer. Roofers for this company were working with no protection at all and without any safety training on fall hazards.

The second most common OSHA citation was related to hazard communication. Companies using toxic or dangerous chemicals and substances are required by law to proprely identify and label these products. They have to make sure that their employees know about the potential danger of these products by providing them with appropriate training on how to work with or near these products. At the beginning of this month an employee at a drilling company in Alabama died after flammable welding gas stored in an unventilated storage container exploded when he opened the door of the container. The employer, Legend Directional Services LLC, was cited by OSHA for failing to train employees on hazards associated with flammable chemicals. The company is facing a $28,455 fine.

Scaffold violations were the third most common violation found by OSHA inspectors. 3,336 companies were cited over the last year for unsafely using scaffolds. The highest proposed fine was $120,320 to Appleton roofing contractor Hector Hernandez. Hernandez employees were neither trained on fall hazards nor provided with fall protection equipment. The contractor also failed to install an extension ladder for safe egress  and failed to provide required ladder jack scaffold components.

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preventing children injury in 2018The Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies (CChIPS) just released a compilation of their 10 most recent projects in their 2018 annual report. Here is a summary of their area of studies and findings:

  1. Some recent studies are questioning if  it may actually be safer for a child to be seated in a proper restraint system in the front passenger seat rather that in the back seat. The CChIPS conducted crash test studies with a child human body model called the PIPER. They found out that a six year old child seated in a high-back booster and forward-facing Child Restraint Seat (CRS) in the front passenger seating position was better protected from injuries in cars equipped with modern passenger airbags rather than cars with no airbags. These findings go against the common belief that airbags are dangerous for children. Additional tests are needed to validate these findings.
  2. Which booster seat design is best at protecting children from injury? Where should the belt be positioned? Would the addition of curtain airbag help prevent injuries in a car accident?
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In our previous blog we provided an overview of the cost of personal injury in the US based on various criteria mostly related to the patients. In part 2 we are going to look in depth at the cost of each particular type of injuries.

Unintentional injuries are by far the most common. More than 26 million people suffered unintentional injury in the US in 2013 according to the study “Incidence and costs of injuries to children and adults in the United States”. The total cost of these injuries almost reached $1.5 trillion.

Number-of-injuries-per-type
Cost of injury per type
Among the unintentional injuries, a third of them were falls. Every year more than 8 million people are visiting the emergency room after falling. More than 3 million are being treated because they were struck and approximately 2.5 million were motor vehicle occupants involved in a traffic accident. Another very common cause of unintentional injury is overexertion.

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What does an injury really cost, not only in terms of medical spending but also in terms of work loss and decreased quality of life? A recent study by researchers from Brown University and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and published in the Journal of Injury Epidemiology provides an economic analysis of the “real cost” of all 31,038,072 hospital-treated injuries in the US in 2013. While most previous studies on injury cost focus mostly on the acute medical cost they don’t address the cost of the burden of injury.

The study found that one American out of 10 visited the hospital for a non-fatal injury during the year under study. Medical spending including hospital and home care, emergency transportation, medicines and physical therapy for all of them came to a total of $168 billion. Future lost work from permanent disability came to a total of $223 billion and quality of life loss came to a total of $1,46 trillion.

The study also provide an in-depth analysis of the cost of injury by age, household income, payer, location, injury mechanism, intent and severity.

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