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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surf rescuersWhat are the risks of injury while surfing? As the swell of tropical storms Gaston and Hermine are hitting the East Coast, New York surfers are getting amped-up by possible big waves coming for this Labor Day week-end.  But is it dangerous?

A recent study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine says no. The study entitled “Surfing USA: an epidemiological study of surfing injuries presenting to US EDs 2002 to 2013” was conducted by Cole Klick, MD, Courtney M.C. Jones, PHD, MPH and David Hadler, MD, MPH from the Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Rochester – Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NY, USA.  They analysed 12 years of data related to surf accidents and injury in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. They came to the conclusion that surfers do get hurt very often but the injuries are rarely serious.

Among the 2,072 cases analyzed, 41% of the injuries were lacerations, 14% were sprains and strains, 13% were contusions and 12% were fractures. Hospital admission rates were extremely low with 96% of the injured surfers visiting the ER being released after treatment. While the median age of injured surfers showing up at the ER was 27 years old, the study shows that older surfers above 60 were the ones at risk of being admitted for trunk injuries or internal organ injuries. Body parts most often injured were lower extremities, face, head and neck.

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timber formwork The traditional way of building slab form work entails many risks of accidents and injuries to construction workers. The formwork is built on site, usually out of timber and plywood and concrete is poured into it. Several risks of accidents and injuries are associated with this operation such as:

  1. Serious injury or even death caused by a fall off the unprotected sides of the work zone’s leading edge.
  2. Serious injury caused by falling objects such as tools or material to workers  active below the area of the traditional formwork construction
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snoop Dog42 people were injured at a Snoop Dog and Wiz Khalifa concert last Fridat night in Camden NJ. The two artists were performing at the BB&T Pavillon when  a railing collapsed causing dozens of fans to fall several feet below onto the concrete (see video at the bottom). One person was critically injured and dozens of them were transported to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries such as bruises and broken bones.

Accidents at concerts and festivals are not very common however when they happen they are often catastrophic because they include a large number of people that are often intoxicated. It is the responsibility of the event organizers to make sure the venue is safe and that contingency plans are in place in case of complications.  Inadequate protection and planing can quickly lead to dramatic disasters during crowded concerts and festivals.

Here are some of the most terrifying concert accidents that happened in the past, the most deadly were due to fire accidents in venues where organizers neglected attendees safety:

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An eight year old boy died from his injuries after  accidentally drowning in the swimming pool of a cruise ship  that had just left New  York and was heading to the  Caribbeans.  Prince Andepoju from Maryland,  was a passenger abroad the Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas that had just left  the city on June 30. The cruise ship was on the New Jersey coast when the young boy was found in the pool. He was alive but was critically injured. He was transported to Staten Island University hospital where he died on July 2nd.  The boy was struggling in the pool for 8 to 10 minutes until someone found him.  According to the city Medical Examiner, he  died from accidental  drowning. Seizure disorders were also a contributing factor in the death of the young boy, the Medical Examiner added.

Read more in the NY Daily News

 

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A defectively designed gear-shifting control in some previously recalled 2014 and 2015 Fiat Chrysler Jeep Cherokee models caused 266 crashes and 68 injuries according to a report that was recently published by the National Highway  Traffic Safety Administration.  The report doesn’t mention any deaths despite the fact that Star Treck actor Anton Yelchin was killed on June 19 after his 2015  Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward and  fatally pinned him against a wall. According to the report, rollaway crashes are prone to happen with these types of gear-shifting controls because they are confusing for the driver. Most reported cases involved drivers who believed they were in the Park  position and exited the car. Read more in the Claims Journal

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Underride truck accidentUnderride truck accidents are among the most horrific traffic accidents.  They usually involved a car sliding under a truck, most often a tractor trailer truck.  These accidents are often deadly and gruesome. In many cases, pieces of metal from the truck intrude into the vehicle causing passengers severe  head trauma or decapitation.

Regulations requiring rear impact guards on most large trucks exist but they are 20 years old and in need of a serious upgrade.  Therefore a few months ago the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration  (NHTSA) proposed a new rule to update the Federal motor vehicle safety standards that address rear underride protection in crashes into trailers and semitrailers.

The NTHSA proposal requires that the impact guard be strengthened so that it doesn’t deform if a car crashes into it at a speed of 35 mph. This is basically the equivalent of the actual Canadian standards which are themselves 10 years old. 90%  of American trucks already conform to these standards. Many of them even have protective equipment that is superior to the Canadian standards. Therefore the NHTSA proposal seems obsolete before even being launched and it will not do much to reduce the actual number of deaths and injuries related to underride truck accidents.

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Too many workers especially in the construction industry are still being injured or killed at the work place because their boss ignores safety rules. When such tragedy happens we call it an accident. However when a boss ignores safety rules and an employee is being injured or killed because of it, shouldn’t the boss be criminally prosecuted? When a construction worker dies in a trench collapse because the developer or the contractor ignored safety rules isn’t it a crime?

In a recent article in Fair Warning Rena Steinzor,  a Law Professor at the University of Maryland and a Member Scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform and Katherine Tracy a Policy Analyst at the Center for Progressive Reform are advocating for the criminal prosecution of CEOs who are putting profit ahead of safety and treat employees injuries and deaths as a cost of doing business.

Read the complete article here.

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High School AthletesWhile a lot of emphasis has been recently put on protecting professional and college athletes from suffering serious injuries and their long term consequences, very little is done on a national scale to protect high school athletes. In a recent article in the Health section of the New York Times Jane E. Brody points out that there are still no national guidelines or rules protecting high school athletes and that it is the responsibility of the states and the schools to protect them. Unfortunately most states and schools are lagging behind in implementing serious safety measures. Last year in the US 50 high school athletes died while playing organized school or league sports and thousands of them suffered long term complications from sports related injuries.

Cardiac arrest, head and neck injuries as well as exertion are the most common causes of death among high school athletes. The author indicates that many of these deaths could have been prevented if the high school had:

  • an emergency action plan
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spinal cord injuryThe medical practice of trying to avoid scar formation at the site of a spinal cord injury may indeed not be correct. Every year approximately 12,500 American will suffer a spinal cord injury and an estimated 276,000 people in the US are suffering from long term effects related to this injury. For decades the prevailing medical dogma was that that scars were preventing neuronal regrowth across the injured area but a newly released study says it is actually the opposite that happens. Scar forming cells called astrocytes may actually help nerve regrowth.  A study recently published in Nature and authored by  Mark A. AndersonJoshua E. BurdaYilong RenYan AoTimothy M. O’SheaRiki KawaguchiGiovanni CoppolaBaljit S. KhakhTimothy J. Deming & Michael V. Sofroniew found that   “scars may be a bridge and not a barrier towards developing better treatments for paralyzing spinal cord injuries.”

Read more in Medical News Today

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safety culture constructionConstruction workers have a high risk of getting injured or even dying in an accident while at work. Construction accidents often happen when negligent contractors try to save time or money and put profit ahead of their own workers safety. A new study looking at safety practices among contractors shows that increased safety on construction sites indeed increases Return on Investment (ROI) and attracts and retains more talented hard hats. The recently released study “Building a Safety Culture SmartMarket Report” was produced by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) and United Rental, a construction equipment rental company.

For the study, Dodge Data & Analytics analyzed 254 American contractors using 33 indicators of safety culture in the construction industry. They found that approximately one third of the contractors were promoting a high safety culture standard in their day to day business and were investing heavily in safety management practices. Another third were somewhat promoting safety culture in their company. The last third were contractors who didn’t have much interest about safety culture and didn’t invest much in it.

The study shows that contractors who invested the most in workers safety reported less injuries, improved their projects quality, increased their projects ROI, had a lower staff turnover and were able to attract staff more easily than contractors who didn’t invest in workers safety.