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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Daniel+Pollack-1By simply noting red-flag concerns front and center of  a patient’s file, child welfare workers can protect children from being seriously abused, injured or killed. In a recent article in Youth Today, Daniel Pollack, a professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University in New York City and a frequent expert witness in child welfare cases describes how crucial information related to a child’s personal safety can get buried into electronic files and later lead to disaster. For example red flag sentences such as “Johnny is a runner. He needs to be watched at all time” should not be hidden somewhere in the child’s file but should be front and center of the file so, as time goes by, the next person to open the file will make sure Johnny doesn’t get killed running into traffic.

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8 year old Jadan William died last week after being struck by a car in Brooklyn, NYC. The young girl was playing with her friends on E. 22nd Street, a dead end street near Ditmas Ave in Ditmas Park when she was struck by a SUV heading south in the cul-de-sac. A neighbor and two nurses from a nearby nursing home performed CPR on the young girl while waiting for the ambulance. The girl who suffered severe head trauma was transported to the hospital in  critical condition but couldn’t be saved. The driver, 35 year old Reginald August, lived on the block and and was a “known speeder” according to residents. After the crash the driver was punched in the face by Tony Romans who knew the girl and witnessed the crash. He was also transported to the hospital and wasn’t immediately charged. The man who punched him was arrested and charged with assault.

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Divine22 year old Jefrrey Divine of Stormville died in a motorcycle accident, early Sunday morning in Putnam Valley, NY. The motorcyclist was riding North on the Taconic State Parkway when he collided with a SUV Subaru driving in the wrong way around 3.35 am on Sunday. According to the preliminary investigation, 40 year old Melida Espinal drove her SUV south in the northbound lanes after entering the roadway at Peekskill Hollow Road before crashing head-on with the motorcyclist. Espinal and two other occupants from the car only suffered minor injuries.
Read more in the Lohud,
Picture: Facebook

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A famous Broadway actor died this week-end after falling from the fire escape of an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, NYC. Kyle Jean-Baptiste was the youngest and the first African-American actor to play the role of Jean Valjean in the Broadway Musical “Les Miserables”. According to the New York Times, Kyle was sitting on the fourth floor fire escape with a 23 year old female friend when he stood up, slipped and fell backwards to the street below.

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There were 19,061 motor vehicle accidents in New York City in July 2015 compared to 19,428 the previous month. During the same month in 2014 and 2013 there were respectively 17,361 and 17,548 crashes.  For the last 3 months the number of  accidents was unusually high and stayed above 19,000. So far since the beginning of the year there were 123,697 traffic accidents in NYC compared to respectively 118,195 and 117,022 for the same period of 2014 and 2013.

Motor Vehicle Accidents NYC July 2015
4,776 people suffered personal injury in motor vehicle accidents in NYC in July compared to 4,795 the previous month and respectively 4,591 and 5,077 for July 2014 and July 2013. Even though the number of motor vehicle accidents was very high in the month of July the number of people injured in these accidents was lower in July 2015 than in July 2013 and almost the same as in July 2014.

The number of motorists injured in a vehicle accident in July 2015 was unusually high and above 2,000 for the first time over the last 3 years under review.

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A construction worker died after he fell down an elevator shaft in New York. The accident happened yesterday at the beginning of the afternoon at the construction site of a future hotel located at 577 9th Avenue near 41st Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.

According to DNA Info the construction worker  was not wearing a harness at the time of the accident. He was working on the fourth floor near the elevator shaft which, at the time, was just a hole that extended all the way to the ground. He fell in and landed on his back. The man who was 30 years old was transported to the hospital in critical condition. He later died.

A few months ago the general contractor for the construction site, BRF Construction Corp, was fined for failing to secure the site after a construction worker was spotted on a 15 to 20 foot wall without a harness. BRF employed non union workers.

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An elderly pedestrian succumbed to her wounds two days after she was hit by a FedEx van.  Lubov Brodskaya was crossing Ave J near E 12th Street in Midwood, Brooklyn, NYC around 1;30 pm on Wednesday when the accident happened.  The van which was turning right onto Ave J hit the woman while she was in the crosswalk. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t expected to be charged. The woman sustained severe head injury and was transported to the hospital. She died two days later.

Read more in the JP Updates

 

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22 people including 10 firefighters suffered personal injury in a two-alarm fire that ravaged the 16th and 17th floors of a high rise building on 3333 Broadway in Manhattan. The fire started around 10:00 am in the morning and firefighters battled the blaze for two hours until it was controlled (read more in the NY Daily News).

Later on, in the afternoon, two people died in blaze that destroyed a house in the Rockaways in Queens, NYC. According to the NYFD, the house was very cluttered making it difficult for firefighters to reach the kitchen where the two victims were located.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Fqi4545HM

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Motor vehicle accidents continue to rise in New York City.  A comparison of data on a trimester basis shows that the number of vehicle accidents during the second trimester of 2015 was the highest of any trimester over the last 3 years.

Motor Vehicle Accident NYC second trimester 2015
However, even though the total number of vehicle accidents is increasing, the number of personal injuries has been slowly decreasing over the last 3 years during the first and the second trimester of each year. The number of deaths related to traffic accidents followed the same trend for the first trimester of this year  and was at the lowest of the last 3 years but the situation changed for the April to June trimester during which 67 people died in traffic accidents compared to 59 for the same period of 2014 and 52 for 2013.  For the last 3 years the number of traffic accident deaths has been slowly increasing every year during the second trimester of the year.

Vehicle Accident injury death New York
31 pedestrians died in traffic accidents in New York during the second trimester of 2015 compared to 29 during the same period of 2014 and 28 during the same period of 2013. During the month of May only, 17 pedestrians were killed by motorists. This is the highest monthly number of pedestrian deaths since December 2013 and since the launch of Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero program.

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3 people from New York City were killed in a car accident Saturday afternoon on the Taconic State Parkway near Yorktown, NY. 8 others were injured including one who is still in critical condition. According to the police investigators, 33 year old Nerim Sinanovic from the Bronx, NYC, was driving north with his family, when he lost control of his BMW SUV, struck the grass embankment that separates the northbound lanes and the southbound lanes and went airborne. His vehicle landed in the southbound lanes, striking two other cars.  A fourth car tried to avoid the accident and crashed into the center guard rail.  The first car struck was driven by 63 year old Donald M. Mulvaney from Brooklyn who was riding with his wife 61 year old Ledell Mulvaney and his daughter , 31 year old Katherine Mulvaney. Both the wife and the daughter died in the accident while the father was transported to the hospital in critical conndition. Nerim Sinanovic’s 2 year old daughter, Leona Sinanovic who was riding in the back of the BMW SUV also died in the accident.  Nerim, his wife 22 year old Blerta and his other daughter , 1 year old Lira were injured and transported to the hospital where they are being treated. They are in stable condition. The occupants of the other car invovled in the collision, Tara Duggins, 28, of Hampton, Virginia, and Sharne Sweeney, 27, of Shrub Oak were also injured. The two other occupants of the fourth car Jennifer Enriquez, 27, and passenger, Jason Lopez, 28, both of Peekskill, suffered minor injuries and have already been released from the hospital. Read more in the Putnam Daily Voice