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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21 year old Michael Messina was critically injured after being hit by a car in NYC early this morning. The young man was riding a scooter on Cooper Ave near 73rd Place in Glendale, Queens  around 3:45 am when a car traveling in the opposite direction veered into his lane and hit him.. The car then caught fire but the driver was able to escape safely. Messina was transported to the hospital in critical condition. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident where he was tested for alcohol. The breathalyzer showed 0.71 which is just below the legal limit of 0.8.  Read more in the NY Daily News

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Fatal pedestrian accident location

No pedestrian crossing at this intersection Picture: courtesy of Google map

A 45 year old man was fatally struck by a negligent driver who didn’t stop after he hit the victim. The car accident happened on 21st Street and 30th Road in Queens, NYC, yesterday around 11:00 pm. The man was transported to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved. The car that hit the pedestrian is believed to be a red Toyota. The police are looking for surveillance footage. The intersection is very dangerous because there is no pedestrian crossing even though it is located in a very busy area of Astoria. According to residents speeding is frequent.

Another accident happened a little bit later in the Bronx. A pedestrian suffered serious personal injury as he was trying to cross the Major Deegan Expressway near 138th in Port Morris shortly after 4:00 am. The victim was transported to the hospital while according to the NY Daily News a car was spotted at the scene of the accident with a smashed windshield and hood.

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A pedestrian was fatally hit by a car in Manhattan on Friday.  The pedestrian was a 76 year old woman who was trying to cross Madison Avenue near 95th street. The car driver was heading north on Madison Avenue when he noticed a parking spot. As he attempted to back his car into it, he struck the pedestrian identified as Mary Jo Myselow. The woman suffered head injury but was conscious when she was found by a police officer lying on the ground. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident. Mary Jo Myselow died from her injuries at the hospital. Read more in the Gothamist

Two days earlier five pedestrians were injured in the Bronx after a driver lost control of his vehicle. The 26 year old driver had a suspended licensed when he jumped the curb at E. Fordham Road and Thiebout Ave in Fordham Heights. He was taken into custody by the police. Read more in the NY Daily News

 

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Decreasing the speed to reduce the number of car accidents resulting in death or serious injury in New York City is one of the top priorities of the Zero Vision Initiative launched by Mayor de Blasio in 2014.  Since November 7, 2014, the NYC’s default speed limit has been lowered from 30 mph to 25 mph and since that date the NYC Department of transportation has been implementing it. The DOT re-evaluated for each borough which streets should have their speed limit lowered to 25mph and which ones should be allowed to keep a 30 mph speed limit.  The DOT posted over 4,700 new 25 mph signs and removed 2,400 30 mph signs. There are still 700 more to be removed. At this point over 5,000 miles of NYC streets have a 25 mph or lower speed limit and over 800 miles of the streets have signs that explicitly indicate that the speed limit is 25 mph.  The DOT also added speed limits in the Vision Zero Map of traffic crashes. Read more in Streetblog

Manhattan Speed limit

 

 

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NYC fire12 people were injured in a fire in New York City Tuesday night. 4 of the victims were transported to the hospital. One of them suffered serious injuries. The other victims were treated on location for smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.

According to the NY Daily News, the fire started on a building rooftop around 10:00 pm on Dekalb Ave between Knickerbocker Ave and Wilson Ave and spread to four other rooftops. Families who lived in the building were able to escape the building  with the help of two early responding police officers. The firefighters who arrived shortly after searched every floor for potential victims.  A resident told the NY Daily News that his smoke alarm never went off and that the screams from other building residents alerted him to get out.

According to the FDNY commissioner, Daniel Nigro, an extension built behind one of the buildings partially collapsed and triggered the fire to quickly spread to the other buildings. By midnight one of the building’s front facades had collapsed. Several apartments were damaged during the fire leaving 90 people homeless.

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a 47 year old woman was injured in New York City after the window of her livery cab exploded and showered her with shards of glass. The woman was a passenger in a livery cab that was driving on East Fordham Road near Sedgwick Avenue in University Heights in the Bronx.  The accident happened around 9:00 pm.  The police are still investigating the caue of the accident. They thought someone may have shot at the limo but no bullet was found. The victim was transported to the hospital. She had cuts in her neck caused by the shattered glass.

Two children were also injured this week-end in the Rockaways, Queens after a gunman on a rooftop randomly fired at the window of the cars they were in. The gunman is still at large.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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February showed an increase in pedestrian accidents, bicycle accidents and motorcycle accidents in NYC while bus accidents and truck accidents were lower than the previous years during the same month. Was the usually warm weather a contributing factor or is Vision Zero  not really working?

After two years of decrease, the monthly number of pedestrians injured in NYC crashes in February is back to the level where it was 3 years ago. Last month 980 pedestrians were injured in traffic accidents in the city compared to 735 in February 2015, 820 in February 2014 and 983 in February 2013.  11 pedestrians died in motor vehicle accidents in NYC last month. The same number of people died the previous month and in February 2015. After Zero Vision was launched in 2014, the number of pedestrians killed in the month of February initially decreased from 13 to 8 between February 2013 and February 2014 and went back up above 10 for the last two years.

Even though the trend is still showing a decline of pedestrians injuries since the beginning of 2013, the 3-month moving average is back around 1,000 while for the same period last year it was around 900. A similar observation can be made for the 3-month moving average of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents. While the moving average was below or at the level of the trend line in February 2015 and 2014 it is now back above the level of the trend line in February 2016.

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Fire escapeA 23 year old man suffered critical injury after he stepped on a defective fire escape and fell 4 stories to the ground. 23 year old Chad Miller was about to move to a new apartment on Bedford Ave near Lefferts Boulevard in Brooklyn, NYC. He was hanging out with a friend on the fire escape outside his new place when the railing broke. Chad fell 4 stories and was critically injured. According to his dad, his son is still in a coma.

The owner of the building  received a violation for failure to maintain the fire escape. It could cost him up to a $5000 penalty. There is also a good chance that the family of the victim files a premises liability lawsuit against him. In 2011 we settled a case for $5,000,000.00 when a fire escape landing on which a man was standing on collapsed causing him to fall approximately 30 feet to the ground. Discussion of case here.

Read more in the NY Daily News and here 

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A pedestrian suffered serious injury after being hit by a car in New York City but according to a witness, the driver was let go by the police after he flashed a badge.

On January 11th, 63 year old  Cindy Klump who managed the drawing Center at Pratt Institute, was trying to cross Myrtle Ave at Ryerson Street in Brooklyn, NYC.  As she was crossing, she tripped and fell on the ground. She was getting back when up she was hit in the back by a a light colored minivan.  John Cisneros, a Pratt student who witnessed the accident saw the van driver parking his vehicle 50 feet away and run to rescue the woman. Another woman who also witnessed the accident ran to the rescue. She had medical training and tended to Klump while Cisneros called 911.

The ambulance and the police showed up shortly after. One of the police officers, Officer Orlando Vargas, started to interview the woman who helped Klump. She pointed at the driver who was still around and pointed at his car and told the officer: “that’s the guy who hit her and that’s his car”. The driver denied it and said it was a car before him who struck the woman and ran away. Cisneros said he saw the driver flashing a badge to Officer Vargas. He then kept the badge on a chain around his neck and was let go by Officer Vargas.

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nypd chaseA 34 year old mother and her 2 year old daughter suffered personal injury in a car accident in the Bronx, NYC.  The accident was caused by a driver who was chased by the NYPD. The chase started after police officers saw a car speeding on on Nereid Ave in Woodlawn Heights. The driver of the car lost control of the vehicle near the Mount Vernon border and crashed into several parked cars on West 4th Street. The mother and her daughter were sitting in one of the cars when the crash happened. She and her daughter were injured and transported to the hospital. According to the NY Daily News, the mother suffered severe head trauma.