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 63 year old grandmother died in a truck accident yesterday in New York. The accident happened yesterday night at 8:48 pm at the intersection of Broadway and West 165th Street in Manhattan. Maria Minchala had just come out of the church and was on her way to work. She was crossing Broadway in the crosswalk when a flatbed truck hit her.

The truck driver who was operating a NYC Tire and Auto Care Inc. truck, was making a left turn onto Broadway when he hit her. He stayed at the scene of the accident and told the police that he never saw the victim. He explained that as he was turning he felt a bump and pulled over. He stepped out and discovered the victim.

Maria Minchala was rushed to the hospital but she didn’t survive. She was the second pedestrian to die in a traffic accident in NYC yesterday. Earlier in the day a 16 year old girl was fatally struck by a hit and run van in Queens (see previous blog)

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deblasioAs the investigation continues into the causes of Friday’s fatal crane accident in Lower Manhattan, De Blasio announced new safety measures that took place yesterday.  The measures are temporary while a task force will draft long term safety measures over the next 90 days. One of the measures requires crawler cranes to stop operating and to go into safety mode when the wind forecast are for steady winds speeds of 20 miles per hour or higher or gusts of at least 30 mph. Before the rule was respectively 30 mph for steady winds and 40 mph for gusts of wind. Additionally cranes will have to be brought to safety the day before winds are forecasted  to be above the security level.  Pedestrian security will be enforced with the help of the Department of Buildings, Department of Transportation, NYPD, and FDNY anytime there will be a securing of a crane. Before that only construction workers were responsible to secure the site. Nearby residents will not only be informed about when a crane is installed but also when it is moved.

Read the transcript of the Press Conference

 

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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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