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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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).

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wandering preventionIf a nursing home resident who suffers from dementia or Alzheimers gets injured because he or she wandered unsafely or into unsafe places, got hurt, eloped, got lost or became trapped in unsafe areas, the nursing home can be held liable for negligence because it failed to proprely supervise the resident.  Incidents of unsafe wandering happen most often in nursing homes that are understaffed or in which the staff is not proprely trained.

Because wandering represents a significant safety risk to older adults with dementia it is often a reason why a family makes the decision to place a loved one in a nursing home.  A good nursing home will train employees on how to prevent unsafe wandering and elopement, assess each patient on a regular basis as to his or her propensity to wander and balance safety and autonomy while implementing measures to deter unsafe wandering.

Families also need to understand the risks of unsafe wandering and elopement and what they can do to help. Discussions may prepare residents and family members who may be unused to seeing wandering behavior in others, and because residents may begin wandering after moving in, discussions might invite more conversation about past or current behaviors.

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A 68 year old Spanish woman visiting from Spain died in a bus accident in Manhattan last Thursday.  The woman was waiting to cross the street with her sister when a United Coach Line white bus that was parked just next to her pulled out of its spot and caught her under the front wheels. The scene unfolded in front of her sister who had to be hospitalized in shock. The United Coach Line bus had parked on Amsterdam Ave. outside the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where the Teacher’s College of Columbia University was holding a hooding ceremony. The university was also holding its commencement, so thousands of graduates and their families were milling about the neighborhood. The driver apparently didn’t see the victim before pulling out. Read more in the NY Daily News

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A 42 year old man died in a horrible bicycle accident in New York.  Yesterday night, around 11;30 pm, New York Court State Officers saw a silver Mercedes Benz sedan running a red light North of the Third Avenue Bridge in the Bronx. The Court Officers put on their flashing lights to stop the Mercedes but the driver sped off and and as he tried to make a turn on E.129th street he hit the bicyclist. The driver and the two passengers ran out of the car and disappeared leaving the cyclist dying on the road. The police are still looking for the three men.

 

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New York car accidentThe New York Daily News analyzed NYPD crash data from July 2012 to March 2015 to see if the Zero Vision Plan launched by Bill de Blasio was making the streets of New York City safer. According to the newspaper analysis that compared the road statistics after the Vision Zero Roll out from September to December 2014 with the same period of 2012, the results are mixed.  Some roads had very large decline in the numbers of vehicles accidents resulting in severe personal injuries or fatalities such as Broadway between 125th street to 95th Street in Manhattan but other roads saw an increase in accidents resulting in injuries or fatalities. For example during the months following a reduction of the speed limit on E. Gun Hill Road in the Bronx, car accidents on this road resulted in 50 fatalities or severe personal injuries while for the same period of 2012 this number was 33.

Read more in the New York Daily News

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brNew York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz who is representing Dana Lerner and Richard Stock in a wrongful death lawsuit against Koffi Komlani, the taxi driver who killed their son Cooper in a traffic accident, said to the New York Post that both parties were proprely served after the lawyers representing the cabbie tried to  use a technicality to dodge the lawsuit.

Copper was crossing the road with his dad at 97th Street and West End Avenue in the Upper West Side in January 2014 when he was fatally struck by the taxi driver who was making a left-hand turn. A witness took a video of Richard Stock trying to pick up his son just after he was run over by the taxi. This video will be included in the lawsuit. “[Richard Stock] is screaming at the top of his lungs. There could never be anything worse for a father,” said Ben Rubinowitz.

Because of insurance caps, Cooper parents do no expect to receive more than $50,000 but they want to pursue a wrongful death lawsuit to hold the cab driver accountable for his recklessness.

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The Borough Pedestrian Safety Action Plans are one of 63 Vision Zero initiatives designed to eliminate deaths and personal injuries from traffic accidents in New York City. This set of five plans have been developed by the New York Department of Transportation and the NYPD. Each safety action plan addresses specific borough related challenges to pedestrian safety. The action plans are based on the input of the borough inhabitants gathered during multiple community workshops and also from numerous data and comments collected on the interactive Zero Vision map.

Bronx Pedestrian Safety Action Plan

Bronx Pedestrian Safety MapThe Bronx pedestrian fatality rate is higher than the NYC average. Most traffic fatalities and personal injuries happen  in the high-density neighborhoods in the north- and south-westerly portions of the Bronx. Arterial streets such as The Grand Concourse, 3rd Avenue, and Fordham Road are the most dangerous.  A lot of pedestrians are killed when crossing the street mid- block because of the lack of an adequate number of crossroads. The Bronx has a lot of overnight pedestrian fatalities. Seniors represent 36% of the Bronx pedestrian fatalities and young adults 18%. Dangerous driving such as speeding, failing to yield, turning on red distracted driving and DUI are the cause of 85% of the pedestrian fatalities in the Bronx and hit and run occurs in 30 % of cases.

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airbag1aOne in seven vehicles on American roads may have defective airbags that can potentially severely injured or even killed passengers as they violently deployed and send shrapnel flying into the car passenger’s compartment. Yesterday after more than 10 years of denial, Takata admitted that his products were defective and agreed to double the number of vehicles recalled in the Unites States to nearly 34 millions.

When a crash happens, pellets of a propellant based on ammonia nitrate are ignited and generate the nitrogen gas that inflates the airbag in a fraction of a second.  Takata said manufacturing problems, together with exposure to moisture in cars in humid regions, can cause the propellant to degrade. This can make the propellant burn too strongly when the airbag is deployed, rupturing the inflater and sending metal fragments into the car’s interior and injuring the driver or passengers.

Read more in the New York Times

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Greta GreeneA 2 year old girl who suffered severe personal injury yesterday after being hit by falling debris, died Today at the hospital. Greta Greene (facebook picture on the left) was sitting outside with her grand mother when they were both struck by terra-cotta bricks from a window ledge that fell from the 8th floor of  the Esplanade Manhattan nursing home at 305 West End Ave in Manhattan.

The toddler lost consciousness and nurses from the nursing home tried to resuscitate her. Her grandmother, 60 year old Susan Frierson, suffered severe leg injuries. They were both transported to the hospital where Greta passed away Today.

A protective scaffolding was erected last night on orders on the Department Of Buildings. The DOB is investigating what caused the ledge to fall. It also issued a violation to the Esplanade Manhattan nursing home for failure to maintain a property in a safe and compliant manner.