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 New York Explosion

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Burn Injury victim Alonzo YanesThis week, in an unusual decision, New York State Supreme Court Justice Alexander Tisch upheld a jury verdict for  $60 million. Our partners New York personal injury attorneys Ben Rubinowitz and Richard Steigman tried the case before Justice Tisch last July. See Prior Blog. This is one of the largest awards for  pain and suffering ever affirmed by a trial court in New York State.

The case was one that sparked national attention. A 10th grade student, Alonzo Yanes, was severely burned in his 10th grade chemistry class due to the negligence of his teacher Anna Poole and the New York City Board of Education.  The teacher, who had been performing the “rainbow experiment,” failed to take necessary safety precautions to protect the students in her class. In the experiment the teacher was using methanol, a highly flammable substance, and failed to ensure that the students were kept at a safe distance from the demonstration table, failed to provide goggles to the students, failed to ensure there was a fire blanket was in the classroom and conducted the experiment in a classroom which did not have proper ventilation or showers.

Alonzo was burned alive. As the teacher poured the methanol from a gallon jug into a beaker a large  fireball erupted and coated this young student with millions of droplets of burning methanol. Alonzo was screaming in agony —  but because there was no protective equipment in the classroom and no shower or fire blanket he kept burning while a teacher from another classroom finally entered the classroom with a fire blanket to smother the flames.

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Dilber Kubic a contractor accused of manipulating the gas line that led to the fatal explosion of a building in the lower east side in March 2015 is back at it. The contractor who was arrested after the accident is now doing illegal construction work in Harlem. Kubic is due to appear in court on March 23rd for the 2nd Ave accident.

MULTIPLE VIOLATIONS OPENED AGAINST THE BUILDING

According to people living in the building on West 154St in Harlem, Kubic was doing demolition work in 3 one-bedroom units to convert them into 2 two-bedrom units. Kubic doesn’t have any permit for this job. A broker for the building told the NY Daily News that he stopped working for the building after the alleged  illegal work started. He also filed a complaint that is being investigated by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. Investigators were unable to enter the building on Thursday and posted a notice for the landlord to get back to them. Journalists from the NY Daily News were able to get in and talk to tenants. They said contractors gutted all the walls in the apartments making terrible noise. The Daily News was also contacted by Joe Yusef owner of Allstate Home Remodeling who told the Newspaper that he hired Kubic to work for him. The News also called the landlord who replied that he didn’t know which apartments the News journalist was talking about. The building conditions are scary and tenants are dealing with mold, roaches and crumbling infrastructure. There are 18 violations opened with the Department of Buildings including 2 for defective elevators. In the past the landlord paid a $10,000 fine for not submitting papers to renovate the exterior of the building. He has a history of non-compliance. Read more in the NY Daily News

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Battalion Chief Michael FahyAn FDNY fire chief died and 20 other people were injured after a Marijuana grow house exploded in the Bronx, NYC.  NYFD Battalion Chief Michael Fahy was called with his men to 300 W. 234th Street in Kingsbridge after passersby reported a gas smell.

Fahy was directing his team from the street when the house exploded. He was fatally struck in the head by falling debris. 20 other people including firefighters and police officers were also injured during the explosion.  The investigators will determine if the explosion was related to the marijuana production or to a gas leak in the house.

Police indicated that the house was targeted by the police as a possible drug spot after they received tips a few weeks ago.

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A manhole explosion sent fire and black smoke in the air this morning around 9:30 on 37th Street between Seven and Eighth Ave in Manhattan, NYC. The explosion caused several buildings nearby to loose power for some time. One building was reported to have no power for at least 8 hours. It took several hours for the firefighters to stop the fire that was coming out of the manhole. Manhole explosions often happen when the rain brings down the salt from the winter into frayed wire or when rats  gnawed at the wire. An investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of this specific explosion. read more on NBC New York.

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East_Harlem_apartment_explosion_aerial_viewCon Ed says the city’s negligence caused the gas explosion that destroyed two buildings last year in Harlem. In a law suit filed yesterday, Con Ed indicates that,  over the years, the NYC Department of Transportation received multiple complaints of huge depressions in the street pavement on Park Avenue near 116th street where the two buildings exploded.”As a result of these defects in the city’s infrastructure in the vicinity of the incident, the gas facilities were exposed to and affected by leaking water, rocks, debris, sand, soil, roadway pavement and other foreign objects,” the filing says.

Read  more in the NY Daily News  

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The risk of  being injured in a manhole explosion will be at its highest this week for New Yorkers as salty melted ice and snow will pour into the city manholes after a sudden increase in temperature. Hundreds of manhole explosions have sent several people to the hospital this winter in New York City. The heavy use of salt in the streets of New York during the wintry weather is to blame for these explosions.  The salty melting ice gets through the street cracks and erodes the underground electrical wires and cables causing dangerous manhole explosions that can injure passers by.There were well over a thousand of them so far this winter according to Con Ed. 600 explosions were reported in New York City in the first week of February alone. To prevent these explosions Con Ed started to install manhole covers with grates. These covers don’t prevent fire but at least in case of a fire they allow smoke to escape thus preventing an explosion.

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16 year old Oscar Hernandez suffered severe personal injury and his mother and sister died in the Harlem gas explosion that destroyed a building on E. 116th street in Harlem, NYC on March 12th this year. The young man spent 11 days in a coma and when he came out of the coma, he needed several surgeries that kept him in the hospital until June 27th. Oscar, his dad and his little sister are the only members of the family who survived the gas explosion. On Thanksgiving all three are happy to be alive and thank all the people who helped them.

Read more in the NY Daily News

East_Harlem_apartment_explosion_aerial_view.jpg
Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

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manhole.jpgAn NYC taxi driver and his passenger suffered personal injury after an explosion caused a manhole to fly in the air and strike the taxi on Lexington near 44th street in Manhattan early Monday morning.

The impact damaged the doors and the windshield of the taxi.

A good Samaritan pulled the two victims out of the taxi through a window and through the sunroof. The driver suffered back injury and the passenger a minor hand injury.

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The catastrophic explosion that happened in New York yesterday may have been caused by negligence and may have been prevented. Mayor de Blasio said the first warning came 17 minutes before the explosions but Harlem residents say that the mayor’s statement is inaccurate. According to them a strong gas odor had been persisting for months and even though there were numerous complaints little had been done about it. Since last fall residents have been calling 311 to complain about the gas odor. Around Christmas time a FDNY officer visited the premises and reassured tenants that everything was fine… Obviously we know today it wasn’t.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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