New York Personal Injury Attorneys BlogWal-Mart is blaming Tracy Morgan for the injuries he suffered in the June truck accident. In court filings last Monday Wal-Mart said injuries “if any, were caused in whole or in part, by plaintiff’s failure to properly wear an appropriate available seat belt device”. Tracy Morgan can’t believe Wal-Mart is blaming him for an accident that they caused. Read more in the New York Daily News
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27 year old worker dies in Midtown Manhattan Construction Accident
A New York City construction worker was crushed to death by a concrete slab that fell off a building adjacent to a construction site in Midtown Manhattan. 27 year old Rodalfo Vasquez-Galian was working on securing the foundations of a future hotel located at 326 West 37th street when the piece of concrete weighing thousands of pounds came loose. According to Rick Chandler, the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings the excavation digging “compromised the foundation of the neighboring building”. In May a complaint that the construction was causing dangerous vibrations in neighboring properties was dismissed after a city inspection. The construction site was also closed in August for one day because of safety violations. Tritel, the construction company owned by hotel developer Sam Chang, has received more than 200 building violations since 2006.
Read more in the New York Times
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Another pedestrian was hit by a car this morning on the Upper West Side of Manhattan causing severe personal injury
Early this morning a female pedestrian was rushed to the hospital after she was struck by a car at the intersection of west 79th street and Broadway (read more in the New York Daily News). Since the beginning of this year numerous pedestrians have suffered personal injury or lost their life after being struck by vehicles on some of the larger streets on the Upper West Side. West 79th Street is one of the most dangerous streets on the Upper West Side because motorists exiting and entering the Henry Hudson Parkway use this large street. In February 2014, residents of Community Board 7 made a list of the 4 most dangerous intersections on the Upper West Side one of which was Riverside Drive and 79th street. According to NYC Crashmapper, there is an average 3.23 collisions per month at this intersection. This morning’s accident happened two blocks away on the same street at another dangerous intersection. Crashmapper calculated a rate of 2.42 collisions per month at the intersection of Broadway and 79th street. According to the same source between August 2011 and February 2014 there were 75 collisions at this location. 5 pedestrians, 1 bicyclist, 5 passengers and 4 drivers suffered personal injury as a result of these accidents.
NYC Crashmapper heatmap shows that every intersection on 79th street has a high rate of collisions
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In a campaign to prevent bicycle accidents, Right of Way installs “20 is plenty” speed signals in Central Park
Four days after Jill Tarlov was struck by a reckless cyclist and died in Central Park (see our previous post), activists from “Right of Way” took action last night by installing “20 is Plenty” signs along the Central Park Drives. (Read more about the Central Park Campaign here)
The actual speed limit in New York parks is 25 MPH but activists believe it should be reduced. Mark Levine, the City Council’s park committee chairman also shares this point of view. Yesterday he called for a reduction of the speed limit in all New York Parks for both motor vehicles and bicycles. Mr. Levine also believes that Central Park and Prospect Park should be completely car free as cars are a much bigger threat to pedestrians than bicycles. (Read more here)
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One man died and another suffered personal injury in two separate NYC motorcycle accidents during which both motorcyclists were struck by a car
A 22 year old motorcyclist suffered severe personal injury after he was struck by a car while trying to take care of his disabled bike on the Henry Hudson Parkway in the southbound middle lane at West 70th Street. The driver remained at the scene while the victim was taken to the hospital in critical condition. Less than 12 hours later, 24 year old David Duran was heading West on 73rd Avenue near the Clearview Expressway when the driver of a Mazda tried to make a U turn and fatally struck the young motorcyclist.
Read more in the New York Daily News
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The average 125 minute emergency room wait at Brooklyn’s Interfaith Hospital puts patients at risk of death from life-threatening illnesses such as stroke or heart attacks
A diagnosis delayed by a too long wait time in an emergency room can be medical malpractice and can be deadly. In Bedford-Stuyvesant, patients checking in at the ER of the Brooklyn Interfaith Hospital wait an average of 125 minutes before they can be seen by a doctor. The hospital recently added more staff but it has financial struggles. Most of its ER patients are uninsured.
The Brooklyn Hospital has the worst ER waiting time in New York State and 4 times the national average according to an article in the New York Daily News.
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A man drove the wrong way on a New York highway exit ramp and died after his car hit a garbage truck
For reasons that are unknown so far, a 63 year old man drove the wrong way on the exit ramp of the Major Deegan Expressway at W. 233rd Street in the Bronx, NYC and was killed after he crashed into a NY Department of Sanitation truck. The man died at the scene of the accident and the truck driver who suffered from back pain was transported to a close-by hospital.
Read more in the New York Daily News
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A rookie police officer died and 8 other officers were injured in a crash during which the driver of a NYPD van lost control of the vehicle in a sharp turn on the Bruckner Expressway in the Bronx, NYC
A violent crash killed one NYPD officer and injured 8 others early morning Sunday in the Bronx. The police officers from the 47th Precinct in the Bronx were on their way to assignments for the Climate March in Midtown Manhattan when the driver of the van lost control of the vehicle in a sharp turn on the Bruckner Expressway and hit a barrier. 25 year old Michael Williams was ejected from the van onto the highway and died several hours later at the hospital. 8 other police officers suffered non life threatening personal injuries. Investigators looking into the circumstances of the accident will determine at what speed the van was going when it approached the turn and if officers were wearing seat-belts as required.
Read more in the New York Times
Picture: NYPD
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A pedestrian died from severe head injury after being hit by a reckless cyclist who crashed into her in Central Park, New York
59 year old Jill Tarlov was struck by a cyclist as she was in a crosswalk in Central Park last Thursday.She suffered severe head trauma and was on life support before she passed away this week-end.
According to witnesses the cyclist was riding his bike recklessly and was most probably above the 25 miles-per-hour speed limit. He swerved to avoid a group of pedestrians and hit the woman.
Transportation Alternative, a bicycling and walking advocay group, released a statement asking the NYPD to “investigate the accident including the cyclist’s speed as he approached Ms. Tarlov”.
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Unexpected out of network charges on hospital bills are driving up medical costs
Recently more and more hospital patients have been receiving bills with hefty charges from unexpected out of network doctors or other medical service providers such as labs or Radiologists. Services that used to be included in the daily hospital rate now comes as additional costs because they are provided by out of network contractors. Many emergency rooms, for example, are now staffed by out-of-network doctors who bill separately.
Out-of-network doctor charges are not negotiable and can reach phenomenal amounts. For example a patient requiring a skin graft would pay $1,781 to an in-network doctor while an out-of-network doctor would potentially charge $150,500. In a recent article in the New York Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal exposes this practice.
