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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3415 Neptune Ave street viewA baby girl died in an elevator accident in New York City on Thursday.  Her mother was also injured in the accident. She was expected to survive. Last  Thursday around 10:30 am, 21 year old Aber Al-Rabahi put her 6 month old daughter Areej Ali in her stroller and headed out of her apartment for a walk. Aber Al-Rabahi and her daughter called the elevator on the 23rd floor of of the Sea Rise, a residential building located at 3415 Neptune Avenue, in Coney Island, Brooklyn. As the elevator doors opened, the mother pushed the stroller inside and walked in without  realizing that the car was stuck 6 feet below. The mother landed on the top of her daughter on the roof of the elevator. The elevator fell down eight stories where the the mom and her daughter landed on the roof. A maintenance worker who heard the mother screaming ran to the rescue. The mother and the infant were both transported to the hospital. The infant was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The mother is expected to survive.

Neighbors told the NY Daily News that both elevators in the building were constantly having problems. On Wednesday night tenants complained that the elevator was not functioning proprely. A mechanic from Centennial Elevator Co. had arrived an hour before the accident. He was working on the elevator when the accident happened. Centennial Elevator has two open OSHA investigations . One of them is related to one of their employees who lost an arm  while repairing an elevator in New York City last May (see previous blog).

According to the Gothamist, this is the second time that someone was killed in an elevator accident at the Sea Rise Complex. In 1991, Chandler  Johnson bumped into the door of the same elevator. The door opened and Chandler fell to his death down the shaft. Since the young man died, there were 147 elevator violations in the building.

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Patient identification : executive summary coverWrong patient error is medical malpractice that can have deadly consequences. As healthcare is becoming more and more sophisticated, patients are visiting multiple care providers and their personal data are being shared through multiple IT systems. The growing complexity of the health care system has led to an increase in patient errors according to a recent report released by the ECRI Institute.

The report entitled “Deep Dive” is based on the analysis of more than 7,500 events of patient identification errors.  The researchers found that most identification errors are corrected before they affect the patients. However some do reach the patients. Some patient identification errors may have limited consequences. For example, a nursing home resident was mistaken for another resident and taken for an unnecessary exam to an affiliated hospital. Other identification errors can have dangerous consequences. An infant was infected with hepatitis B after receiving breast milk pumped from the wrong mother. Some wrong patient errors can be fatal. A patient who suffered cardiac arrest was not resuscitated because the medical staff followed a “do-not-resuscitate” order from another patient.

Wrong patient errors can happen at all stages of a medical process, from registration to electronic data entry, surgical intervention, medication administration, diagnostic or blood transfusion. They can occur in various settings such as nursing homes, doctor offices, hospitals or pharmacies. They are not only committed by doctors but also by nurses, transporters, medical secretaries or anyone else from the medical staff interacting with the patient. Often as the patient is mistaken for another one, the error doesn’t affect only one person but two.

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NYCHA_Logo_480x480Two toddlers died in a fire last April in a Bronx apartment belonging to the New York City Housing Authority. The investigation found that the apartment was visited four hours earlier by Rene Rivera, a former NYCHA maintenance employee. When a NYCHA worker visits an apartment they have to execute several safety checks that include smoke detectors check. The employee signed on his report that the smoke detectors were working in the apartment he just visited. He later confessed to investigators that he actually never looked at them. The employee’s failure to check the smoke detectors resulted in the death of two toddlers in a fire a few hours after his visit.

In an article Today in the NY Daily News, Rivera complains that the work overload at the Butler Houses was such that he didn’t have much time for safety checks.  Rivera blames the faulty error on an understaffed crew and unrelenting pressure to keep things moving. The 27-year NYCHA veteran worker explained that he was overwhelmed by the 25 to 30 appointments he had to respond to every day.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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Rear End CollisionThe Traffic Injury Prevention Journal  recently released a study comparing traffic accidents involving novice teen drivers and experienced adults. The study uses data from the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) Naturalistic Driving Study. Naturalistic driving is a new approach of analyzing driving behavior. In the SHRP2 naturalistic driving study, 2,360 drivers of all ages and genders across the US agreed to have their driving behavior electronically monitored. For a specific period of time, each participant’s car was equipped with high tech data-collecting devices that analyzed their day to day driving activities and behavior.

A team led by researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia used the naturalistic driving data to compare crash rates and rear-end striking crashes among novice teens and experienced adults.  Researchers found 539 crashes involving novice teen drivers (16 to 19 years old) or experienced adult drivers (35 to 54 years old). They looked at data from onboard instrumentation such as scene cameras, accelerometers and GPS to  identify rear-end crashes. Each of these rear-end collisions were then analyzed to obtain information about impact velocity and severity of the crash.

The study found that rear-end crashes represented 43% of all significant at-fault crashes. Novice teen drivers had a crash rate of 30 per million miles driven and a rear-end striking crash rate of 13.5 compared to respectively 5.3 and 1.8 per million miles driven for experienced adult drivers. The median impact velocity for rear-end crashes was 18.9 mph for novice drivers and 2.8 mph for experienced drivers. Rear-end crash severity was also higher for teens than for adults.

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LIRR_Train33 people suffered personal injury in a train crash in Long Island, NY on Saturday night. A Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) train carrying 600 passengers sideswiped a maintenance train and derailed just East of the New Hide Park station in Nassau County. The accident occurred around 9:00 pm. The Huntington Bound passenger train was coming from New York City. After the crash, scared passengers were trapped in the dark for up to an hour until they could be rescued. Among the people injured, 27 were passengers and 7 were workers. The New York Times reported 4 serious injuries.

In a press conference, NY Governor Cuomo told reporters that the accident could have been worse. He also said that the maintenance train violated clearance and intruded into the space of the commuter train. The passenger train sideswiped the maintenance train causing some cars to derail. Yellow paint from the maintenance train was found on the passenger train where the side swipe occurred.

Further investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board  will determine why the maintenance train violated clearance. Regulations related to operation of work equipment are different than regulations related to operation of passenger trains. According to Union sources the maintenance train was operated by a non union LIRR employee.

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the truck that struck the bicyclistA bicyclist suffered critical injury after being struck by a tractor trailer truck in New York City.  The accident happened yesterday morning around 7:15 am at the intersection of Jay Street and Tillary Street in Brooklyn. According to Streetblog the truck struck the bicyclist while making a right from Jay onto Tillary. The victim, a 35 year old man, got stuck under the truck.  His left leg was completely mangled and  he suffered massive head trauma according to the NY Daily News.  He was transported to the hospital in critical condition.

The truck driver stayed at the scene of the accident and hasn’t been charged. The truck was a tractor trailer truck belonging to Mountain Man Sand and Gravel. The truck was on an authorized truck road however it was larger than 55 feet long. Trucks larger than 55 feet long are only allowed in New York City if they transport material that is “non-divisible” and have special authorization. In the case of this accident, the Gothamist indicates that the truck was a Mac trailer Dump truck.  There is a high probability that the truck was not legally authorized to drive where the accident happened. This is the second time this year that a bicyclist has been struck by an over-sized truck driving in a pedestrians and bicyclists area. In April, a cyclist died after being struck by a tractor trailer truck which was illegally driving in a Brooklyn residential area (see previous blog).

Jay Street is considered one of the most dangerous streets for bicyclists in New York City. Recently, the DOT started to remodel the street and add protected bike lanes. However at the intersection of Jay and Tillary protective bike lanes are still nonexistent. Since the beginning of the year, 3 people were injured in bicycle accidents at this intersection according to Vision Zero Map. Also according to data from Transportation Alternatives there were 41 pedestrian and bicyclist accidents at this location between 2002 and 2011.

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Daniel+Pollack-1When a vulnerable individual is injured or dies because of negligent supervision the term “line of sight” is often used. In a recent article, Daniel Pollack, a professor at the School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, in New York City, looks at the meaning of “line of sight”.

If an individual requires continuous line of sight supervision, what does it mean exactly? Does it mean that a supervisor must constantly have his or her eyes on the individual? Does it mean that a person must have an unobstructed  view of the room where the individual is? Daniel Pollack relied on his previous experience as an attorney for the Ohio Department of Youth Services to explain that the interpretation of “line of sight” varies depending on cases.

The complete article can be downloaded here

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jbOur partner Jeffrey Bloom will be talking about Medical Malpractice at the next “Bridging the Gap Winter 2016” program. This seminar is organized by the New York State Bar Association. It is primarily intended to help newly admitted lawyers to bridge the gap between law school and the reality of practicing law in New York State. This two-day program  will take place on November 30 and December 1st at the CUNY Auditorium of the Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave in Manhattan. It will be broadcast to Albany, Buffalo and Boston in an interactive video conference format. Participants will be able to interact directly with other participants or speakers in other locations. The program will also be streamed on a live webcast. This two-day program offers 16.0 MCLE credits. It covers various areas of law.

Jeff Bloom will speak on “Cross Examination of an Expert Witness in a Medical Malpractice Case”.  A top New York  Medical Malpractice Attorney, Jeff has built his reputation trying numerous cases involving failure to diagnose cancer, surgical errors as well as cerebral palsy. Jeff recently represented Melissa Rivers after her mother, Joan Rivers died during a routine surgical procedure. He obtained a confidential but substantial settlement for the Rivers family. Jeff  is also actively involved in pushing New York lawmakers to pass Lavern’s Law. The proposed law would be especially useful for cancer patients who have been misdiagnosed but can’t sue because of the statute of limitations.

Mr. Bloom describes his view of his work as follows: “One of the most difficult events a person may ever encounter is being told that he or she has a serious illness such as cancer. Even more devastating, however, is the realization that the disease should have and could have been diagnosed earlier. As a medical malpractice attorney, my role is to prove this medical negligence to the jury with the ultimate goal of securing a substantial award as compensation for the losses suffered by our clients.”

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25 people died and 5,383 were injured in motor vehicle accidents in New York City last August. During this month, the NYPD recorded a total number of 19,388 traffic accidents. Motor vehicle accidents have been on the rise in New York City over recent years. From 16,729 in August 2013 the number of accidents steadily increased to 17,000 in August 2014 and  18,862 in August 2015. A monthly record was reached last June with 20,362 accidents.

NYC traffic accidents August 2016
In an attempt to reduce the number of deaths related to these accidents, New York The de Blasio administration launched Vision Zero at the beginning of 2014. Since then, the number of fatal traffic accidents has been on a declining trend despite an increase in the total number of crashes.  After reaching a monthly record low of 11 in March 2016, fatal traffic accidents spiked again to 29 last June and 25 last August.

NYC traffic accident deaths August 2016
While Vision Zero may have helped in curbing the number of deaths on the road, the number of people injured in motor vehicle accidents in New York City continued to rise over in recent years. In August 2013, 4,846 people were injured in NYC traffic accidents. This number decreased slightly in 2014 to 4,445 before increasing again in August 2015 to 4,737 and reaching almost 6,000 in August 2016.

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Our NY personal injury law firm is proud to announce that our partners Ben Rubinowitz and Richard Steigman obtained a $7.75 million settlement in  a snowmobile accident in Saranac Lake, NY.

snowmobile accident
The plaintiffs, Thomas Taylor (63) and Linda Taylor (57) were guests at The Point at Saranac Lake, a luxury 5-star hotel in Franklin County. The plaintiffs claimed that the hotel arranged a snowmobile tour with Adirondack Snowmobile Rental. The tour was set up by the hotel for the plaintiffs and four other guests (2 other couples) who were also staying at the hotel. All 6 of the guests were beginners – each of whom had never been on a snowmobile before.Payment was arranged through the hotel. The hotel not only arranged the tour but charged the guests 20% extra for this service.

The Tour Guide, Robert Pinsdorf, an employee of Adirondack Snowmobile, started the tour approximately 10 miles from the hotel, at a campground know as Charlie’s Inn. The hotel guests were given a 10-20 minute lesson in the operation of the snowmobile; however, the guide was charged with the responsibility of leading the guests on the tour and keeping them safe throughout the tour. The plaintiffs claimed that they were unfamiliar with the trails, road crossing and trail signs. Although the first hour of the tour went fine during the second hour, one of the snowmobiles broke down due to a faulty drive belt. The tour guide then decided to head back to Charlie’s Inn to get another belt. He left one guest in the broken snowmobile and took one guest with him on his snowmobile. He told the others to follow him. It was claimed that he was in a rush and, at this time, failed to protect the novice snowmobilers by traveling ahead of them without warning them of road crossings and stop signs and without knowing where they were. Plaintiff s decedent, Thomas Taylor, failed to stop for a stop sign. It was claimed that he was unaware that he was traveling towards a road and stop sign. It was at this point that the plaintiff s decedent crossed the road, without stopping, and was struck by a van driven by an elderly man (who was dismissed from the case on summary judgment).