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 wrongful death NYC

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Tweet from the FDNY reporting the NYC fire accident5 young people died in a house fire in New York City Sunday afternoon.  2 year old Chayce Lipford, 10 year old Rashawn Matthews, 16 year old Jada Foxworth, 17 year old Melody Edwards and 20 year old Destiny Dones  all died in a fire that broke out in a house located on 208th Street in Queens village, Sunday afternoon around 2:30 pm.  911 received a call at 2:36 from someone who was driving in front of the house and saw flames coming out of the 1st floor window. The firefighters only took 4 minutes  to arrive but by that time the house was already completely consumed by fire. The only survivor is 46 year old Maurice Matthews, father of Rashawn Matthews. He jumped from a second floor window.  According to CBS New York, the victims may have been trapped in the attic of the house. The house had no working smoke detectors.  The investigation about the exact cause of the accident is still ongoing.

fdny education teamFollowing the tragic accident, the FDNY fire Safety Education Unit  founded by the FDNY Foundation and the New York Red cross set up a stand in Queens Village to teach community residents about the importance of having smoke detectors in their house. They also installed smoke detectors in houses that didn’t have any.

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Vanessa Raghubar died in a drunk driving accident in NYCA 22 year old woman died from her injury  after a drunk driver crashed into her car in NYC. The drunk driver, 32 year old Neville Smith is a NYPD detective. He was off duty when he crashed into Vanessa Raghubar’s car.  The accident occurred around 4:00 am Sunday morning on the Van Wick Expressway.  Vanessa  was returning from her sister’s birthday party when the drunk detective crashed his Mercedes into her Honda. The impact was so strong that Vanessa’s car was propelled against a light pole and a tree. She and her two passengers, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend suffered critical injuries. All 3 were transported to the hospital where Vanessa died the following day.

Smith was charged with vehicular assault, assault, driving while intoxicated and refusal to take a Breathalyzer test. More charges are expected.

Vanessa who studied psychology was supposed to graduate in June. Her family wants justice.

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firefighter who diedA FDNY firefighter fell to his death Thursday afternoon as he was fighting a fire in a NYC apartment. 42 year old, William Tolley was responding to a two-alarm apartment fire on the third floor of  a building located on Putnam Ave in Ridgewood, Queens.  The fatal accident happened when the fire was almost extinguished. Tolley had just finished executing a routine operation on the rooftop. He was about to get in the bucket at the end of a five story ladder when something went wrong and he fell to his death.

It is not clear so far if Tolley took a misstep or if  a mechanical issue with the ladder or the bucket caused the accident. The truck was kept on the street with the ladder extended for investigation purposes.

The FDNY said the fire was a minor blaze with very limited risk of injury or death and the accident was “bizarre”.

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Building-Blocks-NYC_logo-1Too many construction workers die in New York City because they are not proprely trained for the job. Yesterday the Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust (LECET) and District Council 9, International Union of Painter and Allied Trades (DC9 New York) announced that they were joining forces by creating Building Blocks NYC, a new coalition to advocate for the passage of Intro 1447 by the New York City Council. Intro 1447 is a legislation that would increase training for all construction workers in New York City, union and non-union alike.

Over the last 2 years 33 construction workers died on the job in New York City. The most recent fatal construction accident in the city occurred last week in Time Square, New York. 59 year old Jose Cruz fell 18 feet to his death. Cruz fell from an I-Beam. At the time of the accident, Cruz was wearing a safety harness but it wasn’t tied it off. The accident was completely preventable. (see previous blog)

Cruz was working for Streamline USA, a non unionized contractor. Streamline has a history of safety violations on its construction sites and was fined twice by OSHA over the last year. The majority of fatal NYC construction accidents occurred on non-unionized construction sites. Building Block NYC believes that many of these fatal accidents may have been prevented if employees were proprely trained. Unlike unionized contractors who require their employees to sit down in classrooms and participate in rigorous training programs, many non unionized contractors neglect to proprely train their employees.

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accident sceneA 25 year old man died in a car accident in New York City around 4:00 am this morning. The man was riding a car driven by a 22 year old driver who may have been drunk or high according to the police. The car had  a Taxi & Limousine Commission license plate. So far it is not clear if the passenger knew the driver or if he was a customer.

As he was attempting to exit the Bronx River Parkway at East Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, the driver lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a concrete wall. Speed may have been a factor contributing to the accident as well.

Both the driver and the passenger where rushed to the hospital. The passenger didn’t survive. The driver is in critical condition.

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A man died in a truck accident in New York City yesterday. The accident occurred yesterday afternoon on the parking lot of Decorama Building & Plumbing Supplies on Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC. A 32 year old customer who was backing up hit 63 year old Hou Li with his flatbed truck. Hou Li, a 63 year old man who was working for Decorama Building & Plumbing Supplies died at the scene of the accident.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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NYPD logoGiovanni Nin died in a bicycle accident in NYC last June in the Bronx, NYC. The driver who hit him fled the scene of the accident. 11 months later the police arrested him. On June 11 2016, Giovanni was heading for a nap at his girlfriend’s between two shifts at Fedex.  It was around midnight. As he was riding his bike on East Tremont Avenue he was hit by a BMW SUV. The driver left him dying on the street. The police identified the car but the car owner, 44 year old Victor Pelaez declared his car stolen. He told the police he wasn’t behind the wheel during the accident. However cell phone records showed that Pelaez was near the scene of the accident when it occurred. Pelaez was also seen by an NYPD detective driving the supposedly stolen car on August 10. He was arrested last week and charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death. Read more in the Gothamist

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senior pedestrians3 pedestrians died and another one was critically injured in New York City last Tuesday. The carnage started at 6:00 am in the morning in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 71 year old Joseph Ramieri was crossing Meeker Avenue between Bridgewater Street and Gardner Avenue when he was struck by a car. He was transported unresponsive to the hospital. He died there. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged by the police.

3 hours later, at 9:00 am, 81 year old Carmen Velez was crossing E. Fordham Road when she was struck by a car making a left turn from Hughes Avenue onto Fordham Avenue, Bronx. She was taken to the hospital with severe trauma to her body. She was declared dead upon her arrival. The driver of the car was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.

The third fatal pedestrian accident of the day occurred at night in Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn. A woman in her 50s was fatally hit by a pick up truck at the intersection of Gerritsen Avenue and Whitney Avenue. No charges were filed against the driver.

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Traffic fatalities at Vision Zero priority locations in 2016 compared to previous Vision Zero yearsThe total number of traffic fatalities in New York City in 2016 was at its lowest since 1910 when the city started to keep records on traffic accidents. Mayor de Blasio recently released a new report covering the third year of “Vision Zero”.  According to the report, the first three-year period of Vision Zero is the safest period in New York City history.  The report highlights the recent initiatives launched under the Vision Zero program in 2016. It also provides the most recent statistics on car accidents fatalities and injuries, bicycle accidents fatalities and injuries and pedestrian accident fatalities and injuries in 2016.

In the Vision Zero Borough Pedestrian Safety Action Plans published in 2015, the DOT defined specific strategies to improve the most dangerous intersections and high-crash corridors in each borough.  Consisting of street redesigns, additional police enforcement, education and community engagement, the implementation of these action plans proved to be especially effective. Statistics showed that for the 5 years prior to Vision Zero there was an average 141  yearly traffic fatalities including 99 pedestrian fatalities at identified high-priority locations compared to 100 fatalities including 72 pedestrian deaths in 2016.

Various cross-agency studies have led to targeted safety campaigns. The most recent was an analysis of crash trends after sunset during the fall and the winter in New York City. The DOT and the NYPD who conducted the study together found that after sunset in the fall and the winter, there is an increase in 40%  of  pedestrians dying or being severely injured in car accidents. These findings led to an increase in evening and nighttime enforcement by NYPD officers and TLC inspectors.  This increase in enforcement combined with a mix-media campaign consisting of flyers and messages on television and drive-time radio led to a decline of 30% of traffic fatalities during the initiative.

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Vision Zero was launched in an attempt to reduce pedestrian and bicyclists deaths in NYC. However, in an unexpected twist, the program primarily helped in curbing motorists deaths. 

Back in 2013 before Vision  Zero started, 286 people died and 54,818 suffered personal injury in motor vehicle accidents in New York City. Among the 286 deaths were 168 pedestrians, many of them children and elderly. In New York City, car accidents have been the leading cause of child deaths for many years. According to statistics, two thirds of the children involved in fatal accidents were child pedestrians being struck by cars. Elderly are also at higher risk of being struck by cars in New York City, especially after sunset when the visibility is reduced.

When Bill de Blasio became Mayor on January 1st 2014, he pledged to change this situation and provide safe streets for New York families.  Vision Zero was launched for this purpose in January 2014 and is still ongoing. The program includes various initiatives such as speed limit reduction, dangerous streets re-design and  more forceful prosecution of traffic violations. Since the program started, the total number of traffic deaths gradually declined from 286 in 2013 before the program to 250 in 2014, 235 in 2015 and 223 in 2016. From the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2016, the total number of traffic deaths declined by 22% in New York City.

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