A 27 year old woman was killed in a bicycle accident on the City Island bridge in the Bronx, NYC. The police are looking for the driver of a 2015 White Hyundai who struck 27 year old Gabriella Aguilar and sped away, leaving her to die on the road. See video below
A 29 year old man and a 27 year old woman died in two separate motorcycle crashes early Saturday night in New York City. The first motorcycle accident occurred in Brooklyn around 1:15 AM. The driver of the motorcycle tried to pass a van by squeezing between the parked cars and the van on Parkside Avenue near Park Circle. He lost control of his motorcycle and died in the hospital a few hours after the crash.
The second accident happened 40 minutes later in the Bronx. A 27 year old woman who was riding as a passenger on a bike driven by a 30 year old man was ejected from it after the driver lost control of the vehicle on Commerce Avenue near Newbold Avenue. The woman died and the driver suffered a broken jaw. Having ridden motorcycles for over 50 years the lack of foresight never ceases to amaze me. We all know riding bikes carries a multitude of risks from other drivers. Why compound it by riding foolishly.
Read more in the New York Daily News
Another construction worker died in New York yesterday. 30 year old Juan Cerezo was doing facade work on a scaffold on the 14th floor when he fell and landed on the sidewalk shed. The fatal accident happened on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 363 East 76th Street around 4:00 pm yesterday. It is not clear so far if the worker was wearing a safety harness at the time of the accident. Four complaints have been filed against the building’s renovation this year, two for the second-floor scaffolding breaking or not being up to code, according to city records. The man was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead (read more in DNA).
The boom in construction in New York City has led to a significant increase of workers and non workers being injured or being killed on or nearby construction sites. A few days ago a 30 year old hard hat died after he fell down an elevator shaft on a construction site in Midtown on the West side of Manhattan. (see previous blog).
So far this year 12 people died in construction accidents including non construction workers such as pedestrians struck by debris or tenants killed in gas explosions.
Among all industry sectors in the U.S., construction has the highest number of fatal injuries with more than 800 construction workers dying every year. A lot of research has been done and written on construction safety and health but the challenge is to ensure that promising research findings become safer practices on construction sites.
Last month, the American Journal of Industrial Medicine devoted a special issue on Research to Practice (r2p) at The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) covering the following subjects:
Vision Zero’s “Right of Way” law makes it a misdemeanor for drivers who killed or injured a pedestrian because they failed to yield. However after 6 bus drivers were arrested last year, TWU, the bus drivers’ union started a heavy campaign to protect bus drivers from the law. Yesterday a federal lawsuit brought by TWU against Mayor de Blasio in April resulted in a settlement that drivers will not be strictly liable for seriously injuring or killing pedestrians in a crosswalk. Investigators will have to determine that a driver failed to “exercise due care,” which will now be defined as “care which is exercised by reasonably prudent drivers.” Read more in the NY Daily News
Death or personal injuries such as burns, smoke inhalation and wounds from falling merchandise are among the risks faced every day by New York High end store Idea Nuova’s employees. According to OSHA, the aisles are clogged with merchandise and, at the time of the inspection, an emergency exit was blocked by disco balls, desks and lamps preventing a quick evacuation in case of a fire. Additionally many stairwell exit doors that must remain closed to prevent the fire from spreading were propped open, haphazardly stacked merchandise was threatening to fall on anyone passing to close to it and exposed electrical outlets were a risk for electric shock.
This is the second time in two years that OSHA found unsafe conditions at the high end store located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The company was cited in 2013 for similar hazards at the Manhattan location as well as the Brooklyn location.
Read the OSHA press release
After a dozen died and over 100 more suffered serious personal injury from Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks this summer in New York City, Local Law 77 of 2015 was recently enacted to identify, regulate and inspect all buildings using a cooling tower. As a first step building owners have until September 17, 2015 to register existing cooling towers with the NYC Department of Buildings. A new NYC Cooling Tower Registration Portal has been created for this purpose. More information can be found here.
The dangerous bacteria continues to spread in the city. Yesterday, a catholic school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan had to temporarily close for disinfection after tests showed some legionella bacteria in a cooling tower.
By simply noting red-flag concerns front and center of a patient’s file, child welfare workers can protect children from being seriously abused, injured or killed. In a recent article in Youth Today, Daniel Pollack, a professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University in New York City and a frequent expert witness in child welfare cases describes how crucial information related to a child’s personal safety can get buried into electronic files and later lead to disaster. For example red flag sentences such as “Johnny is a runner. He needs to be watched at all time” should not be hidden somewhere in the child’s file but should be front and center of the file so, as time goes by, the next person to open the file will make sure Johnny doesn’t get killed running into traffic.
8 year old Jadan William died last week after being struck by a car in Brooklyn, NYC. The young girl was playing with her friends on E. 22nd Street, a dead end street near Ditmas Ave in Ditmas Park when she was struck by a SUV heading south in the cul-de-sac. A neighbor and two nurses from a nearby nursing home performed CPR on the young girl while waiting for the ambulance. The girl who suffered severe head trauma was transported to the hospital in critical condition but couldn’t be saved. The driver, 35 year old Reginald August, lived on the block and and was a “known speeder” according to residents. After the crash the driver was punched in the face by Tony Romans who knew the girl and witnessed the crash. He was also transported to the hospital and wasn’t immediately charged. The man who punched him was arrested and charged with assault.
22 year old Jefrrey Divine of Stormville died in a motorcycle accident, early Sunday morning in Putnam Valley, NY. The motorcyclist was riding North on the Taconic State Parkway when he collided with a SUV Subaru driving in the wrong way around 3.35 am on Sunday. According to the preliminary investigation, 40 year old Melida Espinal drove her SUV south in the northbound lanes after entering the roadway at Peekskill Hollow Road before crashing head-on with the motorcyclist. Espinal and two other occupants from the car only suffered minor injuries.
Read more in the Lohud,
Picture: Facebook
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog