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

Published on:

By

Bicycle accidents injuries deaths NYC February 2016Bicycle accidents in New York have been on the rise in recent years and so have the number of people injured or killed in these accidents. Commuting by bike has become quite popular among New Yorkers but it remains quite dangerous mostly because car drivers are driving negligently.

Despite new Vision Zero safety measures such as street re-design and the addition of miles of protected bike lanes the biggest danger bicyclists are facing in the city are negligent car drivers. To raise awareness about the danger that commuters are  facing while using their bicycle to go to work, Jake Dobkin from the Gothamist has asked several colleagues who use their bikes for their daily commute to film their ride.

Jack Dobkin commutes daily between Park Slop and Dumbo in Brooklyn and he is using his bicycle to go to work as well. In Episode One of this series, Jack shows his own daily bicycle ride to the office. Jack says that he’d rather ride one more mile on each commute to avoid using Jay Street which is one of the most dangerous street for bikers in NYC (if you want to understand why check the video clip on our( NYC bicycle accident lawyer page).

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

NYCHA Buildings2 baby girls died in an apartment fire in the Bronx, NYC yesterday. According to the NY Daily News, a pregnant mother left her two year old daughter and her 18 month old sister alone in her apartment while she was going to do the laundry at a nearby laundromat. She also left some incense burning in the house and may have disabled the smoke alarms. According to the New York Housing Authority who owns the building where the fire happened, the alarms were functioning five hours before the blaze.

A neighbor also told the Newspaper that the mother,  26 year old Haya Conce, was always burning incense by the window and she often left the kids alone in the apartment. She was warned that it was dangerous but she ignored the warnings. When the firefighters carried the dead bodies of her babies out of the building shes collapsed on the sidewalk. Firefighters said the dramatic accident may have been prevented if the fire alarms hadn’t been disabled.

Published on:

By

High School AthletesWhile a lot of emphasis has been recently put on protecting professional and college athletes from suffering serious injuries and their long term consequences, very little is done on a national scale to protect high school athletes. In a recent article in the Health section of the New York Times Jane E. Brody points out that there are still no national guidelines or rules protecting high school athletes and that it is the responsibility of the states and the schools to protect them. Unfortunately most states and schools are lagging behind in implementing serious safety measures. Last year in the US 50 high school athletes died while playing organized school or league sports and thousands of them suffered long term complications from sports related injuries.

Cardiac arrest, head and neck injuries as well as exertion are the most common causes of death among high school athletes. The author indicates that many of these deaths could have been prevented if the high school had:

  • an emergency action plan
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

A few days after a DOI investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about faulty elevators that killed a resident and injured another, the NYC Housing Authority announced that Ken Buny, the head of the elevator division was fired. Five NYCHA employees who failed to communicate that the elevators were malfunctioning were also reassigned. They are all facing disciplinary charges that could also result in firing. (Read more in the NY Daily News)

The investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about the faulty elevator before the fatal accident happened but because of a communications  breakdown nobody went to fix it.  On December 24 2015, the NYCHA’s Customer Contact Center (“CCC”) received a phone call from a resident at the  NYCHA’s Boston Road Plaza senior building in the Bronx to inform them about a very dangerous malfunctioning elevator. NYCHA didn’t take immediate action to put the elevator out of service. An hour and half  later, 84 year old Olegario Pabon was critically injured when the elevator drifted upward as he was trying to get in. He died 3 days later from his injuries.  The investigation also found that the NYCHA senior management learned about the accident four days later. Another man was seriously injured in a similar accident that happened in another NYCHA building less than a month before.

In both accidents, the DOI found that brake monitors that should have automatically shut down the elevators were not functioning. After this discovery the DOI checked the 1,080 NYCHA elevators equipped with brake monitors and found that 80 (more than 7%) of them were not functioning.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Coney Island HousesAn elevator mechanic died in an elevator accident in New York City on Friday. The accident happened at the Coney Island Houses in Brooklyn, a public housing development belonging to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).   54 year old Igor Begun, was working in the elevator machine room of the building located at 2926 W. 25th St when he was apparently electrocuted to death.

NYPD and NYCHA are still investigating the causes of the fatal accident. The report from the medical examiner will provide more explanation on the exact cause of the death.

Igor Begun was alone when the accident happened. Another elevator worker who was doing some maintenance work in the lobby found him unconscious in the elevator machine room. He was later pronounced dead.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

safety culture constructionConstruction workers have a high risk of getting injured or even dying in an accident while at work. Construction accidents often happen when negligent contractors try to save time or money and put profit ahead of their own workers safety. A new study looking at safety practices among contractors shows that increased safety on construction sites indeed increases Return on Investment (ROI) and attracts and retains more talented hard hats. The recently released study “Building a Safety Culture SmartMarket Report” was produced by the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) and United Rental, a construction equipment rental company.

For the study, Dodge Data & Analytics analyzed 254 American contractors using 33 indicators of safety culture in the construction industry. They found that approximately one third of the contractors were promoting a high safety culture standard in their day to day business and were investing heavily in safety management practices. Another third were somewhat promoting safety culture in their company. The last third were contractors who didn’t have much interest about safety culture and didn’t invest much in it.

The study shows that contractors who invested the most in workers safety reported less injuries, improved their projects quality, increased their projects ROI, had a lower staff turnover and were able to attract staff more easily than contractors who didn’t invest in workers safety.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

bicycle accident locationA bicyclist was fatally struck by a car in NYC on Friday Morning. The bicycle accident happened at the intersection of Classon Avenue and Lexington Avenue in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, New York. The driver was making a left turn from Classon Avenue onto Lexington Avenue when she hit the 34 year old female bicyclist. According to the NYPD the bicyclist was riding southbound against the traffic. According to StreetBlog, the driver, a 41 year old woman, got out of her car and fainted in the street after she saw the victim. The bicyclist suffered severe head and body trauma and was transported to the hospital where she later died from her injuries.

The accident happened at the entrance of a 20 mph neighborhood slow zone. Classon Avenue has a history of accidents and in 2012 the avenue was completely redesigned to become a one-lane road with broader parking spaces on each side. No bike lane was included in the design.

Read more in Streetblog

Published on:

By

carlos monkayoLast year Carlos Moncayo died in a construction accident in New York. Moncaya was working on a construction site located at 9-19 Ninth Ave in the meatpacking district in Manhattan where the old Pastis restaurant was turned into a Restoration Hardware Store. The 22 year old construction worker was buried in a pit after unstable soil gave way. The accident was fully preventable. An hour before it happened an inspector warned the two construction site supervisors, Alfonso Prestia and Wilmer Cuerva that the 13 foot deep pit wasn’t proprely re-enforced and that nobody should get in the trench. Both men ignored the warning. An hour later the inspector saw 4 men in the pit and rushed again to the two supervisors to urge them to halt work. Two hours later the supervisors finally decided to call the crew out of the pit but it was too late. The trench collapsed and Moncaya died. The two supervisors were charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. According to recent court papers, the two supervisors are now blaming each other for the fatal construction accident. Prestia says that he wanted to fire the foremen who created the unsafe conditions but that Cuevas always opposed it. Read more in the NY Daily News 

Published on:

By

skye brunettiA young mother and her dog were fatally struck by an out of control car in Long Island, NY. 25 year old Skye Brunetti had just dropped her 4 year old boy at school and was walking back home with her dog when a car jumped the curb and fatally hit both of them.

The car driver, 50 year old Barbara Cottone was transported to the hospital in critical condition. The accident happened on Union Boulevrad in East Islip.  People living in the neighborhood told the NY Daily News that the area was notoriously dangerous and that many accidents previously happened at the same location.

If you want to help the family pay for her funeral expenses you can go to GoFundme

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

Fatal pedestrian accident locationLast week a pedestrian died in a hit an run accident at the intersection of 21st Street and 3oth Road in Astoria, Queens, NYC. We pointed out in a recent blog related to this accident that the intersection was very dangerous and had no crosswalk.  An article in DNA now indicates that 9 people were previously injured in car accidents. The article also mentions that Transportation Alternative had campaigned for the installation of stoplights at this location but that it was declined by the DOT.  After last week’s fatal accident, the DOT said it would reconsider its decision.  Read more in DNA

  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 75
  6. 76
  7. 77
  8. 78
  9. 79
  10. 80
  11. 81
  12. ...
  13. 118
Badges
Super Lawyers Best Lawyers Martindale-Hubbell
SEE NEW JERSEY DISCLAIMER PAGE- AWARD METHODOLOGY