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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i - bus driverIn New York every year several pedestrians and cyclists die and many others suffer personal injury after being struck by an MTA Bus. In many of these accidents investigation shows that drivers were negligent and failed to yield or failed to exercise due care.  Since the beginning of the year a few bus drivers were arrested after a new Vision Zero Law made it a misdemeanor for drivers to strike pedestrians or cyclists who have the right of way.  TWU Local 100, the bus drivers Union is against this new law and would like bus drivers to be exempted from it.  This morning TWU local 100 launched a work slow down on 181st Street in Washington Heights between 7:00 am and 9:00 am to protest the law.

The flyers handed out to bus drivers by the Union (see picture) said “DO NOT TURN UNLESS THE INTERSECTION IS CLEAR!”. Isn’t that what bus drivers are supposed to do to keep NYC streets safe?

Read more in the New York Post and on Streetblog

 

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Christian GinelliChristian Genesi, a 25 year old construction worker, fell 24 stories to his death at the beginning of May  as he was riding a temporary hoist to get to the top of a hotel that was being built on 8th Ave.  The city building inspectors who have been investigating the case found out that the hoist temporarily lost power that day and that the electrical system that powered it was installed without a permit. The elevator relied on “unapproved, unsafe, unsuitable electrical equipment” that shouldn’t have been in use, documents show.New York Wrongful Death Lawyer Howard Hershenhorn

Howard Hershenhorn was quoted in the NY Daily News stating “It’s obvious that this is an enormous tragedy, which could have absolutely been prevented had basic safety measures been put in place,” he also added Ginesi wouldn’t have died “had there been safety netting, had there been safety harness and had there been a working electrical system.” “There’s blatant violations of multiple laws in the State of New York, which caused this senseless death,” he also said.

Read the complete article here

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BeforeAndAfterMINICooperSHalf a million people suffered personal injury and 1,700 died in more than 1.7 million rear-end vehicle accidents in 2012 in the US. Many of these accidents could have been avoided or at least mitigated if vehicles were equipped with collision warning systems paired with active braking systems according to a new Special Investigation Report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) entitled “The Use of Forward Collision Avoidance Systems to Prevent and Mitigate Rear-End Crashes“.  In the report the NTSB demonstrates the efficiency of such systems and criticizes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for not doing enough and being to slow in implementing performance standards for these technologies. The  report also notes that manufacturers have too little incentive to add these technologies to their new vehicles.

Picture: before and after a rear-end crash courtesy of Wikipedia

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As part of its investigation into the Amtrak train accident that killed 8 and injured more than 200 people, the National Transportation Safety Board thoroughly analysed the engineer’s cell phone calls, texts, data and cell phone tower transmission activity records from the phone carrier; and records from Amtrak’s on-board Wi-Fi system. This analysis indicates that the engineer was not using his cell phone while operating the train.  Read the NTSB press release

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East_Harlem_apartment_explosion_aerial_viewCon Ed says the city’s negligence caused the gas explosion that destroyed two buildings last year in Harlem. In a law suit filed yesterday, Con Ed indicates that,  over the years, the NYC Department of Transportation received multiple complaints of huge depressions in the street pavement on Park Avenue near 116th street where the two buildings exploded.”As a result of these defects in the city’s infrastructure in the vicinity of the incident, the gas facilities were exposed to and affected by leaking water, rocks, debris, sand, soil, roadway pavement and other foreign objects,” the filing says.

Read  more in the NY Daily News  

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Right of WayLowering the speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph on Prospect Park West may have saved the life of 5 year old Roark Bennett who was hit by a car at the exact same spot where 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein was fatally struck by a car two years earlier.  After the death of her son, Amy Cohen became a Vision Zero activist and successfully campaigned to lower the speed limit on Prospect Park West from 30 mph to 25 mph.  Yesterday when Roark Bennett escaped from his parents and ran out in the street against the light, the driver who hit him was travelling at the speed limit and thankfully Roark suffered only minor injuries.  Read more in the NY Daily News

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Every day in New York  City pedestrians and other road users are endangered by reckless drivers who are running red lights.  A study just released by Hunter College indicates that nearly one out of 10 motorists don’t follow the most basic rule of the road.  Lead by Professor Peter Tuckel of Hunter’s sociology department, the study analyzes the behavior of 3,259 motorists at 50 different intersections in New York City. The intersections are all within a few blocks from subway stations.

A total of 283 drivers were caught ignoring red lights. Half of them didn’t even reduce their speed. 85 of them ran the red light as they were turning.

The intersection of Gates and Evergreens Avenues in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC, was the most dangerous of all intersections analyzed during the study followed by W50th and Seventh Ave in Manhattan and New Lots and Miller Avenues in Brooklyn.

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34 year old Ashmeade Rohan died in a motorcycle accident in Brooklyn, New York City, yesterday night around 9;30 pm. Ashmeade and a 20 year old female passenger were riding North on Rockaway Parkway In Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York, when he collided with a car making a left turn on Avenue J. The two bikers were ejected from the motorcycle. Ashmeade was severely injured and died later on at the hospital while his passenger suffered only minor injuries. The driver of the car wasn’t hurt. Read more in the New York Daily News. Vehicles making left turns in front of motorcycles are one of the most, if not most common cause of motorcycle accidents. Having ridden since I was a teenager I always am extra alert when entering intersections for vehicles about to turn left. Another word of advise if you are older and want to start riding, take intensive lessons and don’t make a Harley your first bike. Rule number one, your first Bike should be one that matches your capabilities. If you are over 40 and riding for the first time, a Harley does not. Nor does a racing bike. Make a shaft driven bike no more than 750cc’s your first one.

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truck rolloverA long awaited NHTSA rule has the potential to decrease by 56% untripped rollover crashes (rollover crashes that are not caused by striking an obstacle or leaving the road) of large trucks and big buses.  This new rule requires that all Class 7-8 trucks and large buses be equipped  with electronic stability control (ESC) system. According to the NHTSA “ESC works instantly and automatically to maintain directional control in situations where the driver’s own steering and braking cannot be accomplished quickly enough to prevent the crash.”

This new rule has been a long time coming. The first recommendation to equip large truck and buses with ESC was issued by the NHTSA in 2011.

Read the press release from the NHTSA

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butt-lift-7-1A 34 year old woman died from a botched butt lift  in Queens, NYC. The woman traveled from Maryland with her mother to receive silicon injections in a basement apartment that a phony plastic surgeon  was using as her office. After she received the injection, the patient started gurgling and struggling to breath. Her mother tried to resuscitate her with CPR. She asked the unlicensed doctor to call 911. Instead of calling for help the doctor grabbed her car keys, ran out of the apartment and took off in a gray SUV. The police are still looking for her.

This is the second time that a woman died after a botched butt lift in New York. In July 2013, 22 year old Tamara Blain died after unlicensed beautician Tamira Mobley allegedly filled her with butt-enhancing injections inside the Liberty Inn Hotel on W. 10th St.

Last year, Liliana Coello was sentenced to two years in jail after she gave a botched butt lift to a patient and injected her buttocks with Krazy Glue (see previous blog).