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 nyc

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A 19 year old driver died and two teen passengers were injured in a car accident in New York City. The accident occurred Tuesday afternoon around 4:30 pm.  19 year old Claudio Poggy was speeding in a Mercedes. Two of his friends aged 16 and 19 year-old were on board. According to witnesses, he was drag racing. As he was speeding north on Kings Highway, Brooklyn, the driver lost control of his vehicle and hit a tree at the intersection with avenue D. The impact was so brutal that the driver died at the scene of the accident. The 16 year old passenger suffered critical injury and the 19 year old one minor injuries. Investigators found that the speedometer was stuck on 130 mph on the unregistered Mercedes.

Male teen driver with teen passengers is a deadly combination

The risk of car accidents is higher among 16 to 19 year-old drivers than among any other age group. Car accidents are indeed the leading cause of death for American teens. According to statistics 6 teenagers die and hundreds of them are injured every day in car accidents in the US. The risk of dying in car accidents is two times higher for male drivers than for female drivers. When another teen is on board with a teen driver, the risk of a fatal crash doubles and increases further when more teen passengers are in the car.

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NYC Construction AccidentThe DOB recently released the presentations made at  last year’s Build Safe/Live Safe Conference. Among them,  “Construction Safety, Year in Review, Recent and Upcoming Changes” by Timothy Hogan and Patrick Wehle reviews and documents with pictures every fatal and near miss construction accident that occurred in New York City in 2017. Among the 12 fatalities, 1 worker died from electrocution and 11 died in falls that could have been prevented by following safety guidelines. In all 11 accidents, workers either weren’t wearing a harness or were wearing it but it wasn’t tied off proprely or not at all.

Near Misses resulting in serious injuries

The presentation also highlights 6 near misses that resulted in serious injuries for workers. These accidents were completely avoidable, related to the decision of the contractor and required extensive rescue operations. In one of the accidents a crane that was illegally modified dropped a 15,000 pound shearing hammer on a construction worker’s leg. Two accidents were related to a floor collapsing on workers because of overload. A shoring failure caused 6 workers to be caught in a collapse of 12+ yards of concrete. A small crane overturned after a stressed out operator failed to deploy the outriggers. 6 workers doing demo almost died in a roof collapse.

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New-York-Slip-and-Fall1Every day 223 older adults visit the emergency room after being injured in a fall in NY State, 140 are hospitalized and 2 die. Fall is the leading cause of unintentional injuries and deaths among older New Yorkers and among older people in the US as well. In the US every 19 minutes an older person dies from injuries related to a fall.

For people over 65 year old, falls often have serious consequences that can affect their global well being, their mobility, their independence and their mental health. 60% of the older New Yorkers who are hospitalized after a fall end up in a nursing home or a rehabilitation center. 11% of them suffer traumatic brain injury and 27% of them suffer from hip fractures.  In most cases falls occur at home. 60% of older adults hospitalized for a fall in New York fell in their own home.

Obviously as people get older, they loose some of their strength,  they sometimes have physical disabilities, their vision is decreasing and they take more medication which can lead to drowsiness. All these factors increase the risk of fall.

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accident scene4  people were injured in an accident caused by a New York City Sanitation truck in Queens on Saturday night. The truck was driving West on the Belt Parkway near Merrick Boulevard when it overturned. During the crash, the compactor of the truck detached and landed on  the top of two other cars, destroying them. 4 people were injured including the driver of the truck who was badly bleeding. According to witnesses he was covered in blood. Another victim was seriously injured and 2 others only suffered minor injuries. All four of them were transported to the hospital to be treated. The police are still investigating the accident.

 

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scene of the fatal hit and run accidentA pedestrian died from her injuries after being struck by a taxi driver who tried to flee the scene of the accident but was shortly after arrested by the police. 26 year old Sherena Hundalani was walking on the sidewalk of Queens Boulevard near 63rd Road next to a gas station when she was struck by a green taxi. It was not exactly clear if the driver pulled in the station to get some gas or to cut across. Witnesses saw him driving through the station and turning left onto the Queens Boulevard service road where he slammed into Sherena.

Good Samaritan stopped the reckless driver

A young man going by the name of Bolat told the News that he was at the scene of  the accident with his wife and kid and that he witnessed the taxi driver behaving erratically. The taxi almost drove into him and his family before abruptly turning on the service road slamming into Sherena. Then the driver tried to leave the scene of the accident and drove the wrong way in the middle lane of the road before pulling over. After he pulled over Bolat opened the front door of the taxi and took out the key. Then the police arrived and brought  the driver to the station. He was released later on at night. So far the man hasn’t charged and the police indicated that they were still investigating the accident.

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private garbage truck involved in New york fatal bicycle accidentPrivate garbage trucks are among the most dangerous vehicles in New York City. 5 people died and 73 were seriously injured in commercial waste truck accidents in NYC over the last two years (2017 and 2018).

After years of complaints by street safety advocates, the NYC Department of Sanitation finally released a Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for its Commercial Waste Zones plan.  This plan is the blueprint to reform the dangerous waste hauling system in New York City.

The actual system allows for 90 different private garbage truck companies to service 100,000 businesses anywhere in the city. As a result, garbage truck drivers and trash collectors are assigned long routes that they have to service each night. Trash collection is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. In New York City a commercial trash worker can pick up to 30 tones of commercial waste during the course of a daily shift that can last for up to 16 hours.  It is also common knowledge that some of them s are exploited and make between $40 and $80 a night while their unionized colleagues can make up to $100,000 a year.

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Lufthansa Cargo BuildingA 40 year old man was fatally crushed by a freight elevator at JKF Airport in NYC. Dillon Jobe was found critically injured in a shaft at the Lufthansa Cargo Building. His cell phone was lying next to him.  So far and according to the NY Daily News, the investigators believe that he dropped his cell phone and was trying to retrieve it, He later died at the hospital. According to the family the circumstances of the death are not clear and the mother told the Daily News that she was told that there was no video footage showing his son dropping his phone, The mother believes she is not getting the whole story. The NYPD is still investigating the fatal accident.

The mother was not called by Aviation Safeguard, the company for whom Dillon was working as a security guard but by the hospital. They asked her to come because her son was there. She rushed there with her other son. The hospital told the mother that her son didn’t have a heart-breath when he arrived but they didn’t know what happened. The hospital said that they were told that his body was found by a conveyor belt. They didn’t know what happened to him.

Dillon Jobe was from Trinidad. He left behind a 7 year old daughter. She lives in Trinidad but they were speaking together everyday. The family doesn’t know how to tell her that her dad is dead.

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FrostbiteAs New York hospitals are gearing up for an increased number of patients visiting the emergency room for cold related injuries it is important that physicians and nurses be up to date with proper management of cold injuries as medical malpractice such as failure to diagnose and timely treat systemic hypothermia can be fatal.

In a recent article published in Medscape, Blair Peters, MD (Resident Physician, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine, Canada) and  Edward W Buchel, MD (Associate Professor of Surgery, Section of Plastic Surgery, University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine; Head, Consulting Staff, Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, Canada) provide an in depth analysis of the various types of cold injuries and the most appropriate manner to treat them.

Systemic hypothermia needs immediate treatment

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Snow Blowers can be dangerousInjuries related to Snow Blower accidents are among the most gruesome injuries related to snow storm hazards. As New Yorkers are gearing up for a massive snow storm this week-end, many home owners will use a snow blower to clean their driveway or sidewalk. The use of a snow blower can speed up and facilitate snow removal but it can cause severe injuries if people are not careful. Thousands of people are missing fingers because they were injured in a snowblower accident. According to statistics, the typical patient visiting the ER after a snow blower accident is a 44 year old male with amputation of the tip of the fingers with the middle one being the most commonly amputated. Typically the patient has been removing some heavy wet snow, exactly like the one expected in New York on Sunday morning, and his machine got clogged. He then tries to unclog the snowblower using his hand, the blade rotates and the accident occurs. Even if the machine is off the blade can still rotate and that’s how many people get injured. They believe that because the machine is turned off they are safe.

Fingers amputations are the most common snowblower injuries

Please never use your hands to unclog your snow blower! Many manufacturers are providing special devices to unclog snow blowers and you should use them!A snowblower injury can alter your life forever. While a few people only lose a little bit of skin off the tip of the fingers, most people sustained much more severe injuries that involve bone, tendons or joints.  Amputations are  frequent and the less soft tissue left covering the finger the more the surgeon will have to cut in the bone. Partial or complete amputation of one or several fingers can have life changing repercussions. For people who are using their hands for their vocation such as surgeons or pianists it can have dramatic consequences.

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New-York-School-Zone-Speed-CameraSpeed cameras have proven their efficiency in reducing car accidents as well as  pedestrian injuries and deaths. As part of the Vision Zero Program, 140 speed cameras were installed nearby schools all over the city. The installation of the cameras led to a decline of 63% of  speeding in school zones and pedestrian injuries decreased by 23%.

Based on this successful record the city asked the NY Senate for more cameras but New York State Senators refused to vote on a bill to continue the program and increase the number of cameras in NYC school zones to 290. As a result, all the 140 cameras were shut off in the middle of last summer.

After that episode, the Mayor signed a new city bill at the beginning of September to not only preserve but also expand the use of speed cameras in school zones. In order for the bill to become law, Cuomo declared a state of emergency and so far has been renewing the emergency order every month. The bill provided no cap on the number of speed cameras that the city was permitted to deploy.  The result of a collaborative effort between City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Transportation Committee Chair Ydanis Rodriguez, the bill can only expire after the state legislature passes a “photo speed violation monitoring program in the City of New York that is identical to, substantially similar to or more expansive in scope than the program that would result from the enactment of A. 7798-C, as passed by the New York state assembly on June 18, 2018.”