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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Nupur BatenA man who was backing out of his driveway in Brooklyn, NYC, fatally struck his wife as she was trying to guide him.  Sakwat Hossain who just got his New York City driving license 3 months ago lost control of his vehicle as he was backing out of the family house driveway on E. 32nd Street near Avenue D in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He hit his 26 year old wife, Nupur Baten who got pinned against the wall of the adjacent appartment building. She was rushed to the hospital but she didn’t survive. She leaves a 4 year old and a 10 month old behind. Read More in the NY Daily News

Our New York Personal Injury Lawyers represented a woman who was also accidentally run over by her husband. He was backing up to pick her up and did not realize she was standing in the street. She suffered serious spinal injuries. Fortunately the husband had purchased an endorsement in his insurance policy specifically stating that interspousal liability was covered by the policy. In New York if this is not explicitly included in the policy interspousal accidents will not be covered. Too many people do not understand this and do not purchase the endorsement.

Picture source: Facebook

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In a recent article, Sandra G. Boodman from the Washington Post writes about the case of a man whose doctors failed to diagnose Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) for months until he consulted with a well traveled gastroenterologist who suspected FMF. FMF is a disorder caused by a gene mutation. this disorder is known to affect Sephardic Jews, whose ancestry is Middle Eastern, as well as non-Jews from the Middle East, Italy and Armenia.

43 year old Jeffrey Sank suffered from recurrent abdominal pain for nearly a year. At the beginning attacks were intermittent but after several months the pain increased in severity and intensity. Jeffrey visited with multiple doctors including two gastroenterologists, a kidney specialist and an infectious-disease physician.  The infectious-disease specialist suspected he had FMF but but did not pursue it after Sank told him he wasn’t of Middle Eastern descent. The last gastroenterologist he saw also suspected it was FMF and even though Sank again denied any Middle Eastern descent again, he decided to prescribe him colchicine, a mainstay therapy for FMF. The drug worked immediately and the abdominal attacks almost stopped. Later on genetic tests demonstrated that Sank had indeed inherited mutated genes from both his parents.

 

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SoMummyInjuriesPosterpeople died and 4000 suffered personal injuries during Halloween activities last year. 40% of the injuries were lacerations from pumpkin carving.  People, especially children, tripping in their costumes and falling caused many injuries as well. Candle fire is also a common cause of injury during Halloween.

Below are a few tips to keep your Halloween celebration fun and prevent it from turning into a real nightmare:

  • Do not give carving knives to children but have them helping you by tracing the design with a marker or scooping big chunks with spoons. Be careful yourself when using the carving knife!
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A 22 year old man died in a motorcycle accident in Queens, NYC around 5:45 am on Sunday morning. 22 year old Nathaniel Gomez was riding on Steinway street near 23rd Ave when he lost control of his bike. He was rushed to the hospital where he died. Read more in the NY Daily News

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newbornHypoglycemia (low blood glucose level) at birth can lead to brain injury and intellectual development disabilities.   Therefore when a child  is born with a low level of sugar in his blood, he or her is immediately treated to maintain the blood sugar level above a certain threshold. Treatment usually consists of additional feeding and or oral intravenous glucose. A new study involving more than 404 newborns  shows that not only maintaining a level of sugar above a certain threshold but also keeping it from swinging too high too fast is essential to prevent neurosensory impairments.

During the first 48 hours of their life, all 404 infants were fitted with a device that would read the blood sugar level every 5 minutes. 53% of the infants participating in the study had blood sugar levels below 47 milligrams per deciliters and needed treatment. The rest of them didn’t require treatment.

The blood sugar monitoring device showed that during the first 48 hours of life many infants including those who didn’t need treatment, experience low blood sugar episodes.

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Qualified and competent OSHA inspector OSHA construction site safety inspectors play a very important role in preventing  workers from being injured or dying on construction sites. Unfortunately with the recent boom in the construction business in New York City, these inspectors are very hard to find and their rates have been increasing significantly.

Certified Site safety inspectors have taken a safety course with OSHA and must meet specific criteria before receiving a OSHA certification. However these last years many  unscrupulous workers just blew off the classes and presented falsified OSHA cards to contractors in order to become site safety inspectors.

Since the beginning of the year the City has been cracking down on these workers.

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FullSizeRender (1)The recent construction boom in New York has lead to a significant increase of hard hats dying on construction sites. These deaths could have been prevented if safety measures were proprely implemented and workers better protected.  Among the workers who died this year, 9 fell because they weren’t proprely secured and several of them were crushed by improperly braced walls.

Unfortunately while the number of new construction sites has expanded significantly,  the number of available site-safety inspectors has dropped.  According to a Daily News investigation, there were 1,171 available inspectors in NYC in 2011 compared to 1,105 in 2014, a decrease of almost 6%.  During that same period of time building permits increased by 18% from 121,000 in 2011 to 142,000 in 2014.

According to the NY Daily News, the rarity of site-safety inspectors has led to a tremendous increase of their rates. Some of them are routinely jumping to better-paying jobs in the middle of ongoing projects to snag higher pay creating dangerous conditions because there is no continuity. Retired inspectors are also coming back on the market because of the high rates but they are often too old for the job and sit behind a desk instead of actively inspecting the construction site. In some cases, contractors used fake safety inspectors. Last year the city busted two contractors who had hired a cook, a hotel bellhop and a hairdresser to sign off on safety reports.

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Last May, 34 year old Marino Nunez, a father of two,  died after being struck by 44 year old Jorge Heraiz, a retired NYPD cop who was drunk driving. That night Hernaiz drank a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Colt 45 before driving. He is accused of fatally striking Nunez with his car as he was exiting the Henry Hudson Parkway onto W. 254th Street and Broadway in Riverdale, Bronx, NYC. After the accident happened, witnesses who saw Hernaiz trying to remove Nunez’s body from under his car called 911. The ex cop pleaded not guilty to drunkenly causing the pedestrian’s death. He is facing a maximum sentence of 25 years if he is convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide. Read more in the NY Daily News

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Defective front disk brakes and quick-release levers installed on 1.3 million bicycles in the US may pose a risk of injury to bicycle riders. An open quick release lever on the bicycle’s front wheel hub can come into contact with the front disc brake rotor causing the front wheel to come to a sudden stop or separate from the bicycle. Therefore the following companies are recalling some models from the following brands:

bike recall

If your bicycle is from one of these brands, the video below can help you determine if your bicycle is affected  and if so what to do about it.

 

 

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A fire in an apartment building in New York City injured 3 people and left one dead. The fire erupted around 9:45 pm yesterday night  in a a 3-story building on Hancock Street near Bedford Ave in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. a 56 year old man was taken to the hospital and died from his injuries. 3 other people were also taken to the hospital. All 3 suffered from smoke inhalation and were treated and released. The FDNY are investigating the cause of the fire. Read more in the NY Daily News