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 construction worker fell to his death in New York last Thursday. The 62 year old man was working on a construction site located on East 107th Street near Lexington in East Harlem New York. He was standing on a fire escape at the back of the building when the accident happened. Another worker who was standing on a nearby scaffold was passing some equipment to him when he lost his balance and fell six stories. The man wasn’t wearing any safety equipment. He died at the scene of the accident.   Falls are the number one cause of death in Construction in the US. Almost 300 construction workers are dying every year after falling on the job.

Read more in the NY Daily News

 

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A pedestrian died after being hit by a school bus Friday evening in Brooklyn, NYC.  The bus accident happened on Atlantic Avenue near Schenectady Avenue in Crown Heights. The bus driver was driving East on Atlantic Ave when he swerved to avoid another car. He jumped the curb and fatally hit a 50 year old woman. During the accident the bus also hit two light poles, a gas station and multiple parked cars. The police are investigating the cause of the accident.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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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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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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269,140 people were injured in NYC auto accidents last year compared to 256,005 in 2014. This represents an increase of almost 5% in one year. The number of crash injuries first decreased between 2013 and 2014 before significantly increasing in 2015.  By categories motorist injuries and cyclist injuries added to the increase while pedestrian injuries and passengers injuries both declined.

While injuries were on the rise, the yearly number of deaths related to motor vehicle accidents gradually declined. From 286 in 2013, it went down more than 12 % to 250 in 2014  and more than 6% to 235 in 2015. By categories, motorists deaths, pedestrians deaths and bicyclists deaths all declined while passengers deaths increased.

Click on graphs to increase to increase size

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train accident fireAlmost a year ago 6 people died and 15 others were injured (including seven severely)  in a Metro-North train accident  between the Valhalla and Mount Pleasant stations in New York.  The Valhalla railroad accident that happened on the evening of February 3rd 2015 was the deadliest in Metro-North history.

Ellen Brody, a mother of three was driving her SUV through the Commerce Street rail crossing in Valhalla. The vehicle got stuck inside the crossing gate when it descended. The approaching Metro-North train engineer spotted her too late and crashed into her vehicle. She was killed in the accident along with 5 other train passengers who were sitting in the lead car of the train. An alleged defective third rail became dislodged and entered the first car of the train. Investigators believe the fuel from the car combined with the sparks of the dislodged third rail ignited the fire that ravaged car 4333 (see picture from the National Transportation Safety Board Investigation on the left).

Our partner, NY train accident attorney Howard Hershenhorn is representing the wife of one of the victims. Last week he filed a negligence lawsuit against Metro-North and its engineer Steven Smalls Jr. as well as the town of Mount Pleasant. The lawsuit lists multiple reasons for the defendants alleged negligence. Among them:

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A truck fatally  struck a bicyclist in Brooklyn, NYC. The truck accident happened yesterday at 5 pm in Sheepshead Bay. 54 year old Reng Can Ma was riding his bicycle westbound on Avenue U near Ninth Street.  A truck driver who was riding in the same direction passed him to closely and hit him. The truck driver didn’t stop. Witnesses believe his truck was so big that he may have not realized that he hit the bicyclist. The police are still looking for him. They have released a surveillance video showing the truck passing the cyclist seconds before the accident. The truck was a large Ryder truck with Indiana license plates. Several people who witnessed the accident ran over to the victim and tried to help him but there was little they could do. The man was lying in the middle of the street and wasn’t moving. According to a witness he was bleeding from the head and he was confused. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Read more and see video on ABC7 NY.

Avenue U is Brooklyn’s second Chinatown. It’s a neighborhood that has been developing fast recently. More and more Chinese food markets, bakeries nail salons and electronic stores are opening between Coney Island Ave and Ocean Ave. The traffic has increased as well and numerous complaints have been reported on the Vision Zero map by concerned residents. The Vision Zero map that was used to define the City’s Vision Zero borough safety action plans shows that Sheepshead Bay residents were worried about the safety of Avenue U. Most of the complaints are related to double parking. Residents reported that there were constantly cars double parked on both side of the Avenue.  Jay walking was also reported on several spots. Additionally complaints of running red lights, failure to yield to pedestrians and illegal U-turns were also reported by some residents.

Avenue U

 

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Brown25 year old Stephen Hewett Brown was killed by a malfunctioning elevator in New York seconds after he saved a mother from being killed herself. New Yorkers moved by the terrible accident helped the family raise almost $14,000 for his funeral. On New Year’s Eve, Brown was in an elevator at 131 Broome on his way to a party on the 25th floor of the building. When the elevator reached the third floor, 43 year old Erude Sanchez stepped out to exit. At the same time the elevator started moving down. Brown immediately understood what happened and pushed the mother into the hallway, protecting her from injury and maybe death. Unfortunately seconds after he pushed the woman to safety he was pinned between the elevator’s roof and the third floor entrance. According to the 10 witnesses who were also trapped in the car, the elevator doors kept opening and closing on him when he was screaming that he couldn’t breath.

According to the New York City Department of Building records, the elevator at 131 Broom Street was defective at the time of the accident. The building had 3 open violations for failure to correct defects in the elevator going back to 2012. Last August, the owner of the building, Grand Street Guild East HDFC, received two Environmental Control Board Violations for failure to maintain the elevator in a code complaint manner. the hearing on that case was schedule the same day of the fatal elevator accident.

Dashia Impaeriali who was the president of the building tenants association from 2006 to 2011 told the NY Daily news that she wasn’t surprised by the accident. She explained that the elevator would sometimes jump several floors and go up and down without reason.

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a 68 year old pedestrian died after being hit by a SUV in New York. The car accident happened last Thursday on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Andrea Kremen from Fort Lee (NJ) was crossing York Ave at East 78th Street in Manhatten when she was hit by a SUV. The SUV was making a right turn onto York. According to a witness the impact was so strong that the victim was thrown 70 yards away from the the initial impact. Witnesses rushed to help the woman before the FDNY arrived. She was bleeding heavily and was rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest. She didn’t survive. Read more in the New York Daily News

Last year a total of 133 pedestrians died in car accidents in New York City compared to 139 in 2014. This is is the lowest number of pedestrians killed in traffics accidents in New York City in a year.  This decreasing trends in pedestrian fatalities in the city can be credited to the Vision Zero initiative launched in 2014 by the mayor de Blasio administration. The installations of speed cameras and the lowering of the city default speed limit are some of the measures that have helped in reducing the number of pedestrian deaths.

Safer street redesign by the DOT such as the creation of slow zones in residential neighborhoods, the redesign of many dangerous intersections in the city as well as the creation of arterial slow zones also  contributed to make streets safer for New-Yorkers.

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A 29 year old pedestrian died after being struck by a hit and run driver in New York on Friday night. The accident happened in Midtown Manhattan on the FDR Drive next to the 34th street exit. The police are still looking for the driver. The victim was transported to the hospital were he died. Read more in the NY Daily News

Last year from January to December NYPD  recorded 38,000 hit and run incidents. In 4,000 cases victims were left injured on  the road. In 48 cases the victims were severely injured or died in the accident. The police arrested 28 people who were related to these 48 cases (read more in Capital New York)