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.
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accident sceneThe passenger of a car died after the driver crashed into the back of a truck in New York. The accident occurred early Tuesday morning on Frederick Douglas Blvd near the intersection of 129th Street in Harlem.  A 35 year old woman driving a Mercedes crashed into the back of a milk truck that was double parked. The impact was so strong that the car then crossed over the entire boulevard and crashed into a tree. Paramedics who arrived on the scene of the accident, rushed the two car occupants to the hospital. The passenger, identified as 33 year old Angel Campana died from his injury. The driver only suffered minor injuries to her face. She was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

Read more in The Patch

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church fails to maintain buildingA man scavenging for construction material in a half demolished building was seriously injured after he fell through the floor. The accident occurred at a dilapidated Brooklyn building located at the intersection of Rutland Road and Brooklyn Ave in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.  The floor gave way under the weight of the 33 year old man and he got trapped. It took an hour for the paramedics and the firefighters to shore up the basement to take him out. The man was then rushed to the hospital where he was listed in serious condition.

Before being bought by the church next door, the building was a lounge. The church received a violation from the city Environmental Control Board for failure to maintain the building  after it partially collapsed. Concerned neighbors told the DOB at the end of January that the structure “was leaning”. The owner was supposed to raze the entire building but only half of it was demolished.

After the accident the DOB issued 3 violations to the church:

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Small_cell_carcinoma_of_the_ovary_hypercalcemic_type_-_low_magIn 2011, Oriana Sousa, a Portuguese psychologist who is now 28 year-old was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer. When the symptoms started doctors initially failed to diagnose the cancer. For several months Oriana suffered from frequent constipation and fatigue. She was also thirsty all the time. Then she started to have terrible abdominal pain and began vomiting. Her doctor told her she was fine and she shouldn’t worry. Her aunt who is a nurse recommended that she see visit another doctor. The new doctor performed a CT scan and found a massive tumor. Oriana was diagnosed  with a very rare, aggressive and fatal form of ovarian cancer.

Immunotherapy shrank the tumor to the surprise of the doctors

During several years Oriana went through surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy to try to eradicate the tumor however new tumors would grow back. Then Oriana convinced her doctor to give her nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug that was not supposed to be used on her tumor. The tumor reacted immediately and shrank. As she continued to take the drug the tumor shrank to the point that she has no more evidence of the disease. Now doctors and researchers are trying to figure out why they were wrong.

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entrance of the German Masonic homeA hard hat was in critical condition after he was hit by debris at a NY construction site. 49 year old Arian Hila was working on the renovation of the Germanic Masonic Home at 120 Western Highway in Tappan, NY. On Friday afternoon one of the debris chutes became clogged with construction material. Arian and another construction worker went inside the dumpster and tried to clean the chute from there. As they were trying to unclog it, the clogged chute detached and fell onto Arian. He was crushed by the debris and could hardly breath. Police officers, firefighters and paramedics all jumped into the dumpster and removed the debris to free him. He could barely breath. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Adrian Hila is an idenpendant contractor employed by Atria Consulting 3. The property is owned by Noble Ninth Inc. The renovation of the building started in 2016. The accident is being investigated.

Read more in the Lohud

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An 8 year old girl suffered head injury after being hit by debris falling off a NYC construction site.

Last Friday morning, Tatiana Devia was in the courtyard of her family’s apartment building on 35th Avenue near 83rd Street in Jackson Heights, Queens, when a wooden plank fell on her head. She was rushed to the hospital to be treated for a mild concussion and a large wound to her head. 3 staples were needed to close the wound. The wood fell from a construction site located at the fourth floor of the building were workers where renovating an apartment. Workers were moving planks from the construction site to the ground by letting them down with a rope from the fire escape. One of the wood pieces slipped from the rope and hit the girl. Construction workers were working without having proprely safeguard the area. The man who was lowering the board ran away and was nowhere to be found.

Investigators from the Department of Buildings issued a full stop work order and the contractor was hit with 3 violations including failure to safeguard a construction site. The family and other witnesses who live in the building said that the little girl could have been killed. Her brother was so traumatized that he was scared to return home.

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Last June a Rochester professor was killed in a NY truck accident on Interstate 90. Just before the accident the driver was allegedly shopping online while driving at 70 mph in a construction area. The driver identified as 27 year old Kristofer Gregorek pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. He is facing up to 15 years in prison. He will be sentenced at the end of June.

The victim, 45 year old Ellen Volpe was driving to work when she was rear ended by the truck. Volpe was an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo’s School of Nursing.  She died at the scene of the accident. A third car was involved in the accident. The driver was injured but survived.

Volpe left behind her a husband and two young sons.

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Personal Injury Attorney Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz, will be a member of the Faculty at the CLE Live Event “Case Framing, The Science and Art of Advocacy” that will take place May 4th and 5th at the Omni Parker House in Boston, MA.

Building a case a jury can believe in is fundamental to obtaining a favorable verdict. Renowned Rhode Island trial attorney Mark Mandell designed and built the Case Framing Model to do precisely that. This model is based on the idea that “just verdicts result when everything presented at trial is framed and sequenced to focus juror attention on the points you most want to make.” The key, then, is to focus the jury’s attention on what really matters.

Mark has created a two-day seminar to teach the fundamentals of Case Framing. The program begins with an introduction to Case Framing, then delves into the latest developments in decision science and psychology, and ultimately finishes with practical guidance on how to apply the model to your cases.

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accident sceneAn alleged drunk truck driver crashed into the car of a pizza deliveryman in Brooklyn, NYC. Thankfully the deliveryman had gotten out of his car seconds before the crash. The accident occurred around 3:30 am last Thursday morning in Williamsburg. The deliveryman had just parked his car on Borinquen Place near Rodney Street. As he just exited it, a white box truck slammed into it. The truck driver who was allegedly drunk previously struck a fence at Public School 319 on Rodney Street and was speeding away from this first accident. He then struck the car, took down a tree and ended into a scaffolding structure causing it to partially collapse. Read more in the NY Daily News

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New-Jersey-Transit-trainThe 300,000 passengers who daily ride the NJ transit have reasons to worry about their safety. Last year federal inspectors scrutinized the New Jersey System and their findings are alarming. Just on train floors or passageway, inspectors found 140 hazards such as unlocked high voltage electrical panels with some of them containing paper tickets or touching bare wires. According to Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman for the NJ Transit, the panels have been cleaned of the paper and locked reducing risks of fires for passengers.

Old, neglected and hazardous trains

Fire hazard is not the only hazard NJ Transit commuters are facing. During his two terms, the previous New Jersey Governor , Chris Christie, cut the NJ annual budget by 90%. Obviously what was left was barely enough to cover day to day expenses and the train system suffered badly. The fleet includes 50 year-old locomotives and passenger cars that were built in the 80ies and 90ies. Engines are old and neglected. Inspectors found locomotives were not in condition to operate with complete air-brake reservoir failure and misaligned foundation gears compromising the braking system. On another locomotive inspectors found that the system allowing traction on slippery tracks was broken.  In the accident that killed a woman on the Hoboken terminal, inspectors found out that the event recorders was broken on the lead locomotive. Several locomotives  were in use despite not having been inspected. Missing electrical grounding was common and suspension problems were found on a multitude of engines. Additionally  an employee was found playing with his cell phone while parking trains and forgetting to apply breaks.

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bicycle accident locationA bicyclist died in a hit and run accident near Laguardia Airport in New York City. After reviewing surveillance videos, the Police now believe that the victim was hit by a shuttle bus.

36 year old Steven Morales was pedaling on Runway Drive near Laguardia Airport around 7:00 pm when he was mowed down by a vehicle that never stopped. The emergency crew gave him CPR and rushed him to a nearby hospital but he couldn’t be saved.

Runway drive which is an access road to Laguardia Airport was shut down for a few hours for investigation purposes. The police also searched surveillance camera and were able to find the shuttle and the driver who allegedly hit the cyclist. The driver denied hitting anyone. He wasn’t arrested. According to the police the bicyclist may have been hit by the rear wheel of the shuttle bus.