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 Posted in Personal Injury

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A construction worker suffered critical personal injury after being hit by a block of concrete that fell on his head. The accident happened at a building demolition site located at 317 Madison Ave between 42nd and 43rd street in Midtown Manhattan. The worker was on the 20th floor of the building when he was hit by falling debris.  The worker lost consciousness during the accident. He was transported to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition. It is not the first time that an accident happened on this specific demolition site. Last July two construction workers were injured in a ceiling collapse.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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A recent accident at the New York Nuclear power plant Indian Point has nearby residents worried about their health and the safety of their water.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered an investigation after a tritium-tainted water leak from the plant resulted in an increase of 65,000% of radioactivity in the ground. The New York nuclear plant is located in Buchanan, Westchester, 45 miles away from Manhattan in a densely populated area.  According to Entergy, the plant owner, the radiation hasn’t migrated off-site and doesn’t pose a safety threat.  However Governor Cuomo said in a statement that this last incident was unacceptable and that “This failure continues to demonstrate that Indian Point cannot continue to operate in a manner that is not protective of public health and the environment.”

Read more in the New York Times

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crane collapse picA man died and four other people were injured in a crane collapse in New York around 8:30 this morning. The accident took place on Worth Street near Church Street. The accident occurred when a  massive construction  crane whose boom extended 565 feet high collapsed on a row of park cars.  The accident was caught on video by Glenn Zito, a construction worker  who was on the upper floors in a building across the street. Glenn and two of his colleagues had just been ordered to stop to work on the upper floors because the wind was too strong. He was on his way down when he capture the below video.

According to FDNY, 38 year old David Wichs had just exited from his car when the crane crashed on him and killed him. Mr. Wichs was an outstanding young man who immigrated from Czechoslovakia as a teenager, graduated from Harvard and worked in the financial industry. He lived with his wife in Manhattan on the upper west side. He was said by friends to be an extremely decent man.   Still in the car was 73 year old Thomas O’Brien who suffered head laceration but survived.  Another victim, 45 year old Dawn Kojima suffered leg injury and another person suffered minor injury after being hit by debris.

This morning the wind was blowing at more than 20 mph and it was snowing. The crew had suspended work and a decision was made to lower the crane to a more secure level. The accident happened as construction workers were lowering the crane’s boom in order to move it into a safe and secure position .

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Falls are the number one cause of fatal construction accidents. Every year in America, more than 10,000 hard hats suffer serious personal injury  and more than 200 died because they fell while working on a construction site.  In 2012 a coalition of government, labor and management representatives launched a yearly campaign to raise awareness about this issue. This year, the campaign which consists in a National Stand Down will take place from May 2nd to May 6th.  On that day, OSHA is asking employers that hire construction workers to take the time to stand down and conduct a fall prevention workshop or other activity related to fall prevention with their employees. OSHA is providing interested employers with toolboxes to help them discuss specific fall prevention subjects such as ladder safety, scaffold safety or fall protection equipment.

The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) recently released a detailed report about the Safety Stand Downs conducted in 2014 and 2015. The reports shows that the campaign reached around 2 million workers over the last two years. Stand-downs were mostly organized by commercial construction companies but also by highway, governmental and residential companies. Most common activities conducted on stand-down last year included training, equipment inspection and audit as well as toolbox talks. The year before meetings and handing out materials to employees as well as training were the most common activities.

Even though the participation was lower last year, the organizers are hopping to see greater participation this year and to reach out to more construction workers. On February 16th the CPWR will organize a webinar related to this campaign . Leaders from CPWR, NIOSH and OSHA will be discussing last year’s Stand-Down and highlighting the plans for 2016. People interested in attending this webinar can register here.

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A pedestrian died and another one suffered personal injury after they were struck by a drunk driver in Washington Heights, New York City, early Saturday. The two pedestrians, a man and a woman in their 40ies  were walking on West 181st Street near Amsterdam Avenue when a car crashed into them. The driver, identified as 34 year old Jonathan Segura, was drunk. He had just exited the George Washington Bridge when he lost control of his vehicle and slammed into the pedestrians. He sped off in the night but returned later to the police station to surrender. He was charged with drunk driving, leaving the scene of an accident, vehicular manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Read more in the NY Daily News

 

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A construction worker suffered critical injury in a ladder accident in New York.  The accident happened on a construction site located on W. 17th Street near Sixth Ave in the Flatiron district in Manhattan. The hard hat was standing on a ladder, installing sheet rock on a ceiling frame when the accident happened. The worker who was not wearing a harness fell 50 feet down an elevator shaft and was impaled on steel rebar. The pieces of rebar pierced his abdomen, back, thigh, buttock and groin. Flagrant construction site safety violations are to blame for the accident. According to a primary investigation by the New York City Department of Buildings, the hard hat was not wearing a mandatory security harness. Adding to that, the elevator shaft wasn’t covered and there were no orange safety caps on the top of the rebar. This is the reason it is so important to fight against any changes in Section 240(1) of the New York State Labor Law which hold owners, general contractors and others liable for injures resulting from a lack of safety devices in height related accidents.

The construction site has a history of unsafe working conditions. The owner and developer, 34 17th Street Project LLC, was fined last August for “failure to maintain the building in a code complaint manner” and  unsafe or improper use of elevator or hoisting equipment at the same location. The violation indicated that the hoistway doors wer not secured “causing an immediate hazard that could cause someone to fall down the shaftway”.  In November nothing had changed and 34 17th Street Project LLC was fined for “failing to certify correction of an immediately hazardous violation”.

New Empire Builder Corp, the general contractor who is managing the site also has a history of violations. In 2014 OSHA inspectors responded to a complaint at 286 Spring Street, New York, NY. They found hard hats working in extremely unsafe conditions.  Some workers were standings on scaffolding resting on bricks. A worker was standing 10 feet above ground on a scaffold with no fall safety equipment while raising material on a pulley. Furthermore other workers were at risk of being electrocuted while using an ungrounded electric cement mixer. The contractor was fined  $19,600.

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A taxi struck a pedestrian in Manhattan early yesterday. The accident happened in the Chelsea neighborhood. The 25 year old man was crossing West 15th Street near 10th Avenue when he was hit by the cab. He was transported to the hospital where he was listed in critical condition. According to a witness the impact was so strong that the young man landed on the front right window of the taxi and badly cracked it.  The taxi driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged. The police are still investigating the crash. Read more in the NY Daily News.

Pedestrians have a higher risk of being  injured in a New York car accident during the winter months than during the summer months. Recent statistics related to pedestrian injury in New York city show that 1,107 pedestrians were injured in January 2013 and 902 in January 2014. The graph below indicates that since 2013, the monthly number of pedestrians injured in a vehicle accident in NYC was always above 900 during the cold months of October, November, December and January. During the warm months of July and August this number was always below 900. Last year the monthly number of pedestrians injured in a crash was below 900 from February to September included. Even though too many people are still injured on the streets of the city, statistics show a trend of decreasing injuries. The Vision Zero initiative can be somewhat related to this improvement.

nyc pedestrian injuries 2015

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4 construction workers at a construction site in upper Manhattan, NYC were injured in a scaffold accident on Saturday afternoon including two seriously.  The construction accident happened while the workers were “repointing” the facade of a six-story building located on Seanman Ave near Beak Street . The four hard hats were standing on  a scaffold when a cable holding it snapped. The scaffold collapsed and the four men were left hanging in the air, saved by their safety harnesses.  Two of the construction workers suffered serious injury. One of them was struck in the head by the snapping cables. The two others only suffered minor injuries. This accident demonstrates that it is essential that construction workers performing work at heights be provided with fall protection including safety harnesses and lanyards.

Minutes later the FDNY were on location and were able to pull two of the construction workers to safety through the windows. They saved the third one with the help of an aerial ladder and pulled the fourth one onto the the roof with a rope.

The 4 workers were transported to the hospital. The NY Department of Buildings is investigating the accident.  Read more in the NY Daily News 

 

 

 

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A woman suffered critical personal injury after being hit by a car in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC early Saturday. The woman who was in her thirties was hailing a cab near Rodney Street and Metropolitan Avenue when she was hit by silver BMW. The driver sped off in the night leaving the woman agonizing in the street. The woman was transported to the hospital. She suffered serious head trauma and was listed in critical condition. The police are still looking for the driver and have released the below surveillance image of the car.

hit and run car

Read more in the Gothamist

 

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Pollak GettoInsurance Companies most often pay the settlements in lawsuits related to negligence, accident, personal injury or fatality. The insurance company will have to evaluate if the claim needs to be legally defended or if an early settlement is more appropriate. The claims adjuster is the person making this decision in an insurance company. In a recent article, Daniel Pollack, a professor at Yeshiva University’s School of Social Work in New York City and Cameron R. Getto, a shareholder with Zausmer, Kaufman, August &
Caldwell, P.C. in Farmington Hills, MI provides a thorough look at the role of claim adjuster and defense counsel in human services litigation. The article focuses on claims that involved human service agencies however the role played by a claims adjuster or defense counsel in a personal injury claim is very similar.

The complete article can be downloaded here

 

 

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