Every year around 250,000 children visit the ER because they were injured at the playground. Broken bones as well as bruises and cuts are the most common injuries suffered by kids. Death can also happened in more rare cases. If you are bringing children to the playground the video below offers a few tips that can help you avoid dramatic outcomes.
Two men suffered severe personal injury in two separate accidents that happened in Brooklyn, NYC, on Sunday night. One of them was a 46 year old cyclist who crashed his bike into the back of an MTA bus in Williamsburg and the other one was a pedestrian who was struck by a car three hours later in Crown Heights. Both were transported to the hospital in critical condition.
Read more in the NY Daily News
The salt used to melt ice and snow on the roads can corrode old car’s brake pipes which may result in dangerous car accidents. People who own a model older than 2007 should get their brakes checked and thoroughly clean their vehicle including the undercarriage warned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in a recent press release. The NHTSA found that seven to eight years of exposure to winter road salts could result in brake pipe corrosion as the agency was conducting an investigation of brake pipe failure due to corrosion on 2 million 1999 through 2003 models of GM trucks and SUV’s. The investigation determined that the brake pipe failure was the result of end-of-life wear out and the NHTSA decied not to recall the vehicles. However the agency is asking vehicle owners that drive cars older than 2007 to check their brakes if they live in the following states: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia.
Picture source: NHTSA
Carbon monoxide is suspected to have caused the death of 4 elderly people in a house in Queens, NYC on Friday. 83 year old Jerry Hugel and his 80 year old wife Marie as well as their tenant 70 year old Gloria Greco and Walter Von Thadden a 70 year old friend were all found dead in their house on 86th street Avenue in Floral Park. According to the authorities the house filled with gas after a car was left running in the basement. The house didn’t have any carbon monoxide detectors even though it is required by Amanda’s law in New York since 2009.
Amanda’s Law is named after a 16 year old girl who died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sleeping over at a friend’s house. This law requires that every one or two-family dwelling, condominium, cooperative and each unit of a multiple dwelling shall have an operable carbon monoxide (CO) detector. The use of a battery operated detector is allowed for homes built before 2008. All homes built after this date must have the alarm hard-wired in the building. Amanda’s Law also requires contractors to install a CO alarm when replacing a hot water tank or furnace if the home is not equipped with an alarm. CO detectors are required only if the dwelling unit has appliances, devices or systems that may emit carbon monoxide or there is an attached garage.
Read more in the New York Times
Our partners, New York personal injury lawyers Ben Rubinowitz and Peter Sagir represented the family of Marilyn Dershowitz, a retired Manhattan Supreme Court special referee who died in a bicycle accident during which she was hit by a postal tractor trailer truck. Following a two-week bench trial in February U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn found the federal government 100% liable for the fatal accident in a 72 page Opinion.
The accident happened on Saturday July 2, 2011. Marylin and her husband Nathan Dershowitz of Dershowitz, Eiger & Adelson, and the brother of Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, were riding their bikes on West 29th street between Ninth and Tenth Ave in Manhattan, New York. Both were wearing a helmet. As they rode under an overpass connecting two US postal mail facilities, the road was narrowed by a protruding Postal Trailer that was perpendicularly parked at a dock. As Mrs Dershowitz was about to ride her bike in the narrower side way, just behind her another postal trailer, driven by Ian Clement, was competing with a silver minivan to get in first in the narrower roadway as due to the parallel parked trailers to the south and the protruding perpendicular Postal Trailer to the north, cars were not able to travel side-by-side. The postal trailer got in before the minivan but he didn’t see the cyclist and hit her as he was veering to the right to be able to fit into the roadway.
Southern District Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled Wednesday that the federal government was 100 percent liable for the accident. Netburn said “a preponderance of the credible evidence” showed that Clement’s driving and the placement of a postal trailer protruding into the street were the “sole, proximate cause of the decedent’s injuries. Mrs. Dershowitz was not contributorily negligent.”
In New York City, personal injuries related to falls are the most common injuries requiring hospitalization among all age classes with the majority of them happening to adults older than 65.
As part of the Vision Zero Program to reduce traffic deaths and injuries related to traffic accidents in New York, the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) started to test a warning system in six of its cabs. The warning system uses artificial vision technology such as cameras and radar to warn drivers about a potential upcoming collision. This test is a step in the TLC Vehicle Safety Technology Pilot Program.
Read more in the New York Post
Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia
In the US red blood cell units can be stored for up to 42 days after they are collected. Previous studies have questioned this medical practice and have implied that the storage duration may impact the quality of the blood cell units. These studies which were based on observations showed a correlation between the transfusion of blood stored for a longer duration and increased morbidity and mortality. However according to National Institutes of Health the clinical significance of these findings was difficult to determine due to study-design limitations.
In order to get a better opinion on whether red blood cell storage duration impacts a patient’s clinical outcome after transfusion the NIH funded the Red Cell Storage Duration Study (RECESS) that was also supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
RECESS was conducted at 27 hospitals in the US including Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University and Columbia University Medical Center in New York. The study evaluated 1,098 cardiac surgery patients who were randomized to receive red blood cell units stored for short (up to 10 days) or long periods (21 or more days). The study was conducted from January 2010 to January 2014.
April is distracted driving awareness month and the National Safety Council is running its annual campaign to prevent car accidents related to driver cell phone use. This year’s campaign’s focus is on the risks of hand free devices and new vehicle technologies that allow drivers not only to talk on the phone but also to check emails, post social content or order take out food while driving. According to the NSC, even though 80% of drivers mistakenly believe hands free devices are safer than hand held, more than 30 studies have already demonstrated that hand free devices don’t make drivers safer as their brains remain distracted.
The NSC campaign’s video shows a mother driving with a child in the back seat and receiving a a call from her husband. As she talk to him through a hand free device, her brain gets distracted and she drives through an intersection without seeing a stop sign resulting in an accident and the video ends on the sentence “Calls Kill”.
Our Managing Partner Ben Rubinowitz was interviewed by Mario Diaz of PIX 11 as to the recent NYC East Village gas explosion. Mr. Diaz quoted Ben as follows, “It’s a rare thing to have one party to blame. Usually there is shared fault in these cases.” Ben went on to state, “The gas should have been shut down to the entire building no matter what until this was rectified. In other words the failure to make sure that everyone was protected is where the fault lies.” To read the full article and see the video interview click here.
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog