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 Wrongful Death

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A woman driving back from a family gathering with her 3 children and her mother lost control of her car killing herself and all the other car passengers on the Southern State Parkway toward Brooklyn Saturday night around 11:00 pm. The car veered off the road, hit a tree and burst into flames killing all occupants of the vehicle. The police are investigating the cause of the accident.

Read more on the NBC New York website

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StarNetworkMagnicubesLARGE.jpgAs part of a settlement of an administrative case based on product defect filed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in December 2012, the company Star Networks USA announced a voluntary recall of all Magnicubes Spheres sets and Magnicube Cubes sets. These sets contains high power rare earth magnets that create a substantial injury hazard. The CPSC received numerous reports describing teenagers or children who died or suffered serious personal injury requiring surgery after ingesting the small magnets.

To read more about this recall click here

To read more about product liability click here

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Post-partum hemorraging is the medical term for excessive bleeding after childbirth. It is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the world and accounts for 30% of deaths in Africa and Asia.

Mikail Kalam from Brooklyn, a 25 year old medical student at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem , New York, and his research team discovered that a condom filled with saline can put pressure on the uterus and reduce or stop the bleeding until the woman is transferred to a hospital. This could be a life saver for millions of women in poor countries including Bangladesh where Mikail is from and where 70% of women give birth at home assisted by midwives.

Tampostat.jpgThe device called tampostat, costs only $1.50 to produce. It allows the condom to be securely introduced into the uterus and filled with an amount of saline appropriate to the size of the uterus.

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A young woman was killed in a car accident between two drunk drivers on Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NYC Sunday around 4:00 am. Michelle Migmot was sitting in the back seat of a car driven by 32 year old Herbert Gerrard and another 32 year old woman who suffered minor injuries was sitting in the front passenger seat. As they were turning left onto Troye Ave another car driven by 32 year old Richard Roman Santos crashed into them. Both drivers were arrested and charged with vehicular manslaughter and drunk driving. Additionally Gerrard was charged with driving with a suspended license. Michelle Migmot lived two streets away from the location of the crash. Read more in the New York Daily News.

Eastern Parkway is a dangerous corridor where many car crashes happened previously. It was recently turned into a “Slow Zone” and the authorized speed was reduced to 25 mph as part of the Zero Vision Initiative to reduce traffic fatalities and personal injuries in New York City.

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Picture source: NYC Crashmapper Car crashes statistics between August 2011 and February 2014

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61 year old Jean Chambers died on July 10th after being struck by a driver making a left turn at the intersection of of West 95th Street and West End (see previous blog). Earlier this year 9 year old Cooper Stock was crossing the street in the crosswalk and holding his dad’s hand when a taxi turning from 97th Street onto West End Ave struck them. His dad only sustained minor injuries but the young boy died (see previous blog). 96 pedestrians, 41 cyclists and 160 motor vehicles occupants have been injured in traffic accidents on West End between W 75th Street and W 106th Street from 2008 to 2012. West End Ave is dangerous because it is a large 4 lane avenue located in a residential area with schools and seniors center that handles a lot of traffic entering and exiting the Henry Hudson Parkway between 95th and 97th street.

To calm traffic and make it safer for the residents, the Community Board 7 Transportation Committee accepted this week a Road Diet proposal form the NYC Department of Transportation. The proposal includes the reduction of the number of lanes from 4 to two with turn bays, flush median and several pedestrian islands but no bike lanes. The proposal also bans two left turns where traffic exit and enter the Henry Hudson Parkway:Northbound left at W 97th St and Southbound left at W 95th St. The next step is to get the endorsement of the CDB7 full board meeting on September 2nd.

Download the complete DOT Proposal

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Last year in New York 151 people were struck by subway trains and 53 of them died. There are many reasons why people are being injured or killed by a train: they fall on the tracks after feeling ill, they are pushed by someone else, they loose something on the track and try to go pick it up or they jump in front of the train to commit suicide. To stop the staggering amount of injuries and deaths happening on its tracks, the MTA is testing sensors and video systems that would prevent people who fall on the tracks to be struck by a train. The systems use high-tech devices to alert the driver if someone falls on the tracks. The tests look promising and the MTA executives are planning to install such systems in subway stations between 2015 and 2019.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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A two year old boy died after he fell out of a window early Sunday morning on Gerard Ave in the Bronx, New York. The window guards were installed as required by New York Law but the 2 year old boy may have climbed over them. The toddler woke up in the middle of the night and went into the kitchen while his grandmother was asleep in another room. According to ABC news the boy moved a pot and climbed on it to reach the window. He died from severe injuries at the hospital.

 

Source: New York Daily News

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There were 18,321 motor vehicle accidents in New York City in June according to the recent statistics published by the NYPD. This is the highest number of accidents per month in one year and the second consecutive month that this number is above 18,000. A similar increase in vehicle accidents was also observed for the months of May and June last year. During these two months this number was also above 18,000. The total number of motor vehicle accidents for the first six months of 2014 is 8068 compared to 8828 in 2013, a decrease of 9.1%.

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4950 people suffered personal injury in a motor vehicle accident last June compared to 4621 in May and 5046 in June 2014. During the first six months of the year 24,383 people suffered personal injury in a vehicle accident compared to 26,119 for the first six months of 2013, a decrease of 7%.

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For the first 6 months of 2014 there were 117 traffic fatalities compared to 121 in 2013. 20 people died in traffic accidents in June compared to 25 the previous month and 22 in June 2013. The number of motorist deaths was higher than usual for the last two months.

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A MTA contractor was killed by a 2700 pound industrial battery that fell of a crate that he was unloading from a truck. The accident happened at the Throgs Neck Expressway facility near Pennyfiels Ave in the Bronx, NY. The workers at the facility are operating and maintaining the Throgs Neck Bridge. The contractor was part of a team who was working on upgrading the electrical infrastructure at the site.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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Speeding and failure to yield to pedestrians are the leading causes of traffic fatalities and personal injuries to pedestrians in New York City. Therefore as part of the Vision Zero Initiative all NYPD precincts have been instructed at the beginning of this year to increase enforcement of the most dangerous traffic violations.

A new report card from Transportation Alternatives published last week looks at six months of Vision Zero Traffic Enforcement in New York City. Globally across the city, speeding tickets increased by 32% and tickets for failure to yield increased by 153% for the first 6 months of 2014 compared to the first 6 months of 2013. However while looking at the numbers precinct by precinct, Transportation Alternative discovered huge discrepancies. The most troubling was to find neighborhood precincts with similar traffic conditions and street design that had very different enforcement efforts. For example In Harlem,the 26th Precinct nearly doubled the number of speeding summonses issued from last year(294 to 533),

while the adjacent 30th Precinctin Washington Heights issued half as many summonses as they did the prior year.