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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Pollack and DumasCould a child be better protected from potential injury and abuse if the CPS investigator was not randomly assigned to his or her case but specialized in that specific type of case? In a recent article, Daniel Pollack, a professor at Yeshiva University’s School of Social Work in New York City and Gilion Dumas, a practicing attorney in Oregon focusing on cases involving child sexual abuse explain why instead of randomly assigning cases to CPS investigators children may be better protected if a specialized investigator is assigned to their case.

Download a PDF of the article here

 

 

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accident locationA 22 year old man was severely injured in a car accident in New York City. The young man was struck by a car at the intersection of Dry Harbor Road and Woodhaven Blvd in Queens (see Gooogle map picture) last Friday morning around 4:4o am. The driver who hit him never stopped and the police are still looking for him. As the victim was lying on the ground in the middle of the road, a second driver didn’t see him immediately and struck him a second time. He then dragged him under his car for a block until he realized what happened and stopped. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged. The young man was transported to the hospital in critical condition. He survived the accident and according to the NY Daily News he is now in stable condition.

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Surgery at HospitalNew York hospitals are among the worst in the country according to a new analysis by the Empire Center based on ratings just released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).  Patients looking for a hospital can now go to the Medicare.gov website and compare the quality of care of hospitals in the country. The overall  rating goes from 1 star (worst score) to 5 stars (best score) and is based on 64 measures of quality.

Out of a total of 180 hospitals, only one hospital in New York State had a 5 stars ranking: the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. 12 hospitals scored 4 stars, among them only two of them were located in the New York City: The New York Presbyterian Hospital and the NYU Hospitals Center. 49 of them obtained a 3 stars rating. In NYC hospitals obtaining this score were the Lenox Hill Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and New York Community Hospital of Brooklyn, Inc. 58 hospitals in New York State rated two stars. Among them those located in the city were Beth Israel Medical Center, Lutheran Medical Center, Mamonides Medical Center, Metropolitan Hospital Center, Montefiore Medical Center, New York Presbyterian/Queens, North Central Bronx Hospital, St Barnabas Hospital, St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital and Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center. 35 New York hospitals only got 1 star. More than half of them are located in New York City and include Bellevue Hospital Center, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Medical Center, Brooklyn Hospital Center at Downtown Campus, Coney Island Hospital, Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Harlem Hospital Center, Interfaith Medical Center, Jacobi Medical Center, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Kings County Hospital Center, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, New York Methodist Hospital, Queens Hospital Center, Richmond University Medical Center, St John’s Episcopal Hospital at South Shore, Staten Island University Hospital, University Hospital of Brooklyn (Downstate), Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

The average star rating for New York State is 2.26 that’s just before Puerto Rico with 2.00, the Virgin Islands and Guam with 2.00 as well and the District of Columbia that comes last of all of the states with an average score of 1.43.

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Fulton and Chestnut2 pedestrians were killed in a car accident in New York City last night. The driver who struck them is still at large. A little bit after midnight last night 41 year old Delman Maldonado and 56 year old Isreal Turcios were crossing the street at the intersection of Fulton Street and Chestnut Street in Cypress Hills Brooklyn (see Google map picture on the left). As they were crossing a speeding driver lost control of his vehicle, slammed into two parked cars and struck the two friends. The driver took off running leaving the two men dying in the street. Delman Maldonado, a father of one, died at the scene of the accident, Isreal Turcios, a father of three, was transported to the hospital but didn’t survive. The two of them were friends living in the neighborhood. They had just left a bar owned by Turcios’ brother and were going back home when the fatal accident happened.

 

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Guler-Ugur-YaacobiA man who killed a pedestrian on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC, on New Years Eve, 2014, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and driving without a license.

30 year old Prezidor Porbeni, an undocumented immigrant from Nigeria was driving on the Upper West Side when the car in front of him stopped to let 44-year-old  Guler Ugur-Yaacobi, a brooklyn photographer, cross the street. (see previous post)

Porbeni didn’t realize why the car was stopping and used the other lane to pass it. As he passed the car he didn’t see the pedestrian and struck her causing her death. According to his lawyer he then panicked and fled the scene of the accident leaving the woman dying in the street. Later on he surrendered to the police and admitted that he fled. Porbeni will get between 1 and 3 years behind bars. As a result of his conviction he also may be deported.

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6th ave and west 19th streetA pedestrian was injured on Wednesday  in Manhattan after two cars collided and one of them careened into the woman who was crossing the street. The accident occurred around 10:00 am in Gramercy. The woman in her 40 was crossing the intersection of Avenue of the Americas and 19th street (google map picture on the left) when a yellow taxi and another car collided just next to her and one of the vehicles struck her. She was injured and bleeding according to the NY Daily News. She was transported to the hospital to be treated.

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21 East 115 StreetA greedy Harlem landlord put a family at risk of serious injury or death while starting to demolish a building while they were still living there. Ephraim Vashovsky tried to evict all tenants  to pull the building out of rent stabilization. He almost succeeded but a large family of undocumented Mexicans who had nowhere else to go  decided to stay despite the fact that the landlord was gutting the building (see Google map picture on the left ).

The heartless landlord deprived the family of water, electricity and heat and put the family at risk of dangerous accidents. He is now in custody and charged with various crimes ranging from endangering the welfare of a child and grand larceny to coercion and conspiracy Read more in the NY Daily News 

 

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car obstructing bike laneBicyclists riding in New York City have an increased risk of being injured or dying in a bike accident when a car or a truck is blocking their bike lane. The cyclists have to merge into traffic to pass the vehicle blocking the bike lane therefore  increasing their risk of being struck by another vehicle.  People who are commuting by bike in New York City are facing this problem on a daily basis. Bicyclist advocates have been voicing their complaints about this dangerous matter on regular basis and the NYPD listened to them.  This spring the “Bicycle Safe Passage” enforcement initiative was launched. The idea of the initiative is that over several periods of one week during the year the NYPD would focus on ticketing all vehicles blocking the bike lanes or not yielding to bicyclists. This week marks the third week of the operation for this year. During the previous operation last month, the police ticketed 1,757 motorists blocking the bike lane and 810 who didn’t yield to bicyclists. However according to Streetblog, police were also ticketing bicyclists rather than focusing their effort on protecting them.

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22nd Street and 6th Av, GreewoodA man was critically injured in a bike accident in New York City last night.  The accident occurred at the intersection of Sixth Ave and 22nd Street in Greenwood Brooklyn, NYC (see Google map picture on the left) . According to the driver of the car who was interviewed by the NY Daily News, the bicyclist was coming very fast and blew the stop sign before hitting the driver’s side rear section of the car. The bicyclist suffered head trauma and was transported to the hospital. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident.

More and more bicyclists are injured or die in bicycle accidents in New York City. According to recent statistics published in Vision Zero View, 12 people died and 1,896 were injured in bicycle accidents during the first six months of 2016 compared to respectively 5 and 1,648 during the same period of 2015.  Therefore the number of NYC fatal bicycle accidents during the first six months of the year increased by 140% and the number of NYC bicycle accident injuries went up 14% compared to the first sixth months of 2015.

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Rockaway Point BlvdA 26 year old pedestrian was killed by a car in New York City  early Sunday morning. Terence Montrose was walking on Rockaway Point Boulevard a little bit after midnight. A minivan traveling in the same direction struck him from behind. The young man was transported to the hospital but he couldn’t be saved. The 22 year old driver of the minivan stayed at the scene of the accident. He wasn’t charged. His car was damaged. The front was dented and the windshield smashed. The police are still investigating the accident. Read more in the NY Daily News