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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Go New York Tours Bus13 people were injured in a bus accident in New York this afternoon. The bus was a double decker operated by Go New York Tours. The bus was heading South on Fifth Ave near 63rd Street when it crashed into a tree. The bus driver told the police that he swerved to avoid a cab who cut  in front of him. However a witness who was crossing the street at the time of the accident told the NY Daily News that it wasn’t true. He explained that the bus was driving too fast and that he jumped the curb to avoid a city bus that had stopped in front of him to pick up passengers. According to the same witness, the driver never hit the brakes and went straight into the tree. The impact was so violent that  it sounded like an explosion.  Among the injured, a couple of tourists in their 70’s suffered serious head injuries.  11 other people were also injured and transported by ambulance to the hospital.

Go New York Tour is a company operating 22 “hop and off”double deckers buses with 40 drivers. The company has a terrible reputation in New York City. It was investigated by the Consumer Affairs department in 2014 for ripping off tourists, having ill-informed guides and bus drivers as well as employees behaving in an extremely rude and profane manner.

The Consumer Affairs department conducted multiple inspections of the Bus Tour operator which according to ABC News has been slapped with 18 violations including one driver without a commercial driver’s license. 3 of the 22 buses failed to pass federal inspection and one of the buses was also involved in an accident with a car last March in Queens. It is a shame that the city of New York still allow this company to operate.

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methA reckless motorist who fatally struck a pedestrian and injured a few others in New York was convicted of murder. 35 year old Shaun Martin was high on Meth and PCP when in 2013 he sped down Second Avenue in Manhattan, NYC, jumped the curb and fatally hit a florist who was just coming home from his night shift. Two other pedestrians were also injured by the reckless driver. Shaun Martin is now facing life in prison. Read more in the NY Daily News

picture source: wikipedia

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The reckless driver of a BMW who killed a mother and severely injured her daughter in a car accident in New York City and ran away has been arrested by the police. Last Sunday 58 year old Jairam Budhu was driving  his BMW with a suspended license at twice the authorized speed limit when he blew a right light and crashed into another car killing a mother and critically injuring her daughter. He then fled the scene of the accident on foot leaving in his car a passenger who was also injured. He was found by the police while having a drink on his porch at 8:00 am on Sunday morning. He was arrested and charged with manslaughter, assault, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and unlicensed operation of a car. Read more in the NY Daily News

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Tappan_Zee_Bridge_tower_construction_NY14 people were injured in a crane accident in New York. A giant crane collapsed  on Tuesday around noon on the Tappan Zee bridge landing on the 8 lanes of the highway (see video). It is a miracle that no vehicle were struck by the crane and nobody was killed in the accident said New York Governor Cuomo in a press conference in Tarrytown, NY.  Only 3 motorists trying to avoid the falling crane and a construction worker were treated for minor injuries. Witnesses said they saw the crane operating normally and all of sudden falling sideways on the highway blocking the traffic in both ways for the whole afternoon.

28 cranes like this one are operating on the Tappan Zee Bridge construction site which is the largest infrastructure project in the US. The crane was a new MLC 300 manufactured by Manitowoc Cranes with a 256 feet long boom. At the time of the accident, construction workers were using a vibratory hammer to install pilings, a routine task that is not considered dangerous or challenging.

Officials are investigating the cause of the collapse. They said the wind wasn’t an issue. The operator of the crane stayed at the scene and was tested for drugs and alcohol.

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Reports of people suffering personal injury while playing Pokemon Go are growing as players glued to their phone screen forget to evaluate their surroundings. The Daily Mail reports that a man broke his collar bone on the first day of the game release and that doctors reported a lot of bruises, blisters, sunburns and some sprains, fractures and broken bones as well.

Despite being a great way to get teenagers and young people to  do some outdoor activities, some of them are so enthusiastic about the game that they forget about basic dangers. Crossing the busy New York City  intersections with your eyes glued to your phone screen is not a good idea.  Driving your car while playing Pokemon Go is a total no no. In New York a man crashed his car into a tree while playing Pokemon Go while driving.  Riding your bike while playing Pokemon Go is also dangerous and not recommended.  The NYPD  recently issued a statement on how to safely catch Pokemons and also recommend that people travel in groups to avoid being targeted by predators.

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To prevent kids from dying when they get hit hard in the chest while playing baseball, the city of New York offered free defibrillators to all male youth baseball teams but not the female softball teams. Apparently the city’s budget for defibrillators was not sufficient to cover all youth baseball and soft ball teams so they just offered them to the boys teams. The softball coaches are outraged and asked the city why the youth female teams do not get a free defibrillator.  Despite statistics showing that commotio cordis happens more frequently to young male players than female players both boys and girls deserves the same protection in case of such an accident.

When a baseball or softball player get hit hard in the chest by a ball, he or she can suffer commotio cordis which is a condition during which the heart stops working properly. It affects mostly young athletes and leads to deaths in 65% of the cases.  Victims are usually saved from death using a defibrillator to provide a shock to the heart to try to restart it.

Last May Mayor deBlasio signed a law to provide a free automated external defibrillator for baseball leagues who play on city fields but not for the softball teams or other sports teams.

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A mother died and  her daughter was seriously injured in a car accident in New York City yesterday. The 41-year-old woman was riding in a car driven by her husband.  She and  Her 9-year-old daughter were sitting in the backseat. A 71-year-old man  was riding in the car with them in the front passenger seat. They were driving north on 130th Street in South Ozone Park in Queens around 5:00 pm. As they drove  through the intersection of 115th Ave, a speeding BMW  that just blew a red light crashed into them violently. Witnesses said it  sounded like a bomb.  The impact was so strong that the mother and the daughter were ejected  from the car and landed on the street. The mother died and the daughter was seriously injured. The father as well as the passenger were also injured but in stable condition. The driver of the BMW ran away leaving behind him an injured passenger. Read more in the NY Daily News 

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imageA drunk off duty cop killed a pedestrian and injured 3 others in Brooklyn, NYC, Sunday around 3:00 am.  21 year old Andrew Esquivel (photo ), a MIT student interning in New York for the summer , was walking home when he was hit by an out of control car that jumped the curb. Another man and two other women were seriously injured in the accident. The driver of the car was off duty NYPD Officer Nicholas Batka who was allegedly drunk but refused a breathalyzer test. He was charged with vehicular manslaughter, three counts of assault, driving while intoxicated, driving with impaired ability and driving on a sidewalk. Read more in the NY Daily News 

 

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A man was seriously injured after a piece of plywood from a security fence at a  construction site fell on him. The man was walking on the sidewalk at the South East  corner of 30th St. and Fifth Avenue in NYC yesterday around 4 PM when the accident happened. An 8 feet long piece of plywood that was not properly secured fell on him, knocking him down to the ground. He was transported to the hospital in serious condition.  See video below for more.

A similar accident happened in the West Village at the beginning of the year. A woman who was passing by was killed by a piece of plywood that detached from a construction site security fence. See previous blog 

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A man in his 70s suffered serious injury after being struck by a tractor-trailer truck in Queens, NYC. The man was crossing Jamaica Ave. near 168th Street around noon when he was hit by a dairy truck. His legs got pinned under the wheels and were severely mangled. An airbag was used by the first responders to lift the wheel from the man’s leg. He was then transported to the hospital. The pedestrian suffered massive leg injury but he was expected to survive. The truck driver who stayed at the scene of the accident wasn’t charged.

Read more in the NY Daily News