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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In a city like New York where traffic is dense, using a cellphone while riding a bicycle can have catastrophic consequences. After witnessing a distracted cyclist almost causing a multi-car accident because he was texting while riding his bike, Councilman Mark Treyger did some legal research and was surprised to learn that in New York there is no law prohibiting cycling and texting or cycling and calling. Therefore he decided to introduce a new bill that would ban cellphone use while bicycling and punish first time offenders with a safety class.

The NYPD says that the law isn’t really necessary. They have already issued 423 tickets this year for distracted bicycling compared to 213 last year.Bike advocates are not in favor of the new bill either. They argue that it would take police resources away from fighting other more dangerous behavior in the streets of New York.

Read more in AM NY

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Tubing misconnections are medical errors that can lead to severe personal injury or death.These errors often happen when a doctor or a nurse mistakenly connect tubes for different functions together, for example connecting a feeding tube to a tracheostomy tube. To avoid these type of errors, new ISO standards have been developed for tubing connectors. The objective of these new connectors is to make it impossible to connect tubes used for different functions. The first ISO connector standard has already been adopted and others will gradually be introduced and adopted throughout 2014 and 2015. During the transition phase however new risks of tubing misconnections will arise and the Joint Commission is urging hospitals and healthcare providers to take all necessary measures to prepare for the new standards by building awareness and communicate across their facility, prepare and train the staff, adopt the new connectors and measure the accomplished progress.

Download the Powerpoint presentation of the Joint Commission webinar

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fall%20prevention%20in%20residential%20construction.pngFalls from heights are the most common cause of construction workers deaths and this number is especially concerning in the residential construction sector. To address this issue, OSHA is now enforcing similar safety standards in home building and in commercial construction. Despite this effort, falls in residential construction continues to kill thousands of construction workers every year.

Recently a group of researchers from the Washington University of St Louis joined forces with the Carpenters’union and residential contractors to launch 3 initiatives targeting apprentices, foremen and contractors as part of a research study. A revised apprenticeship training taught foremen and contractors how to choose fall prevention methods adapted to each specific situation and subsequently how to communicate these methods to their workers. As part of the study, contractors can also try new fall protection equipment on their construction site.

Participants not only increased their fall prevention knowledge but also communicated better between themselves about fall risks and how to prevent them. The study also led to a higher use of fall protection devices by workers.

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84 year old Ignascio Andal was crossing the street when he was struck by a car driven by a 17 year old driver. The accident happened on Wicklow Place in Jamaica Estates, Queens, NYC, yesterday afternoon. The elderly man who lived just a few blocks away died from his injuries at the hospital. The car driver wasn’t charged.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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police%20brutality.jpgPolice brutality and racial profiling continue to happen in New York City because cops can get away with it. Since 1999 when Amadou Diallo died after being shot at 41 times and hit 19 by the police, 179 additional people have been killed by on duty New York Police Officers but only 3 of them have been indicted and 1 of them was convicted but he never went to jail according to an investigation conducted by the NY Daily News. 27% of the victims were unarmed, 86% were black or Hispanic.

Most of the time police officers get away with their crime because the prosecutors and the police need each other to do their job. Advocacy groups have been asking the creation of a special prosecutor to handle such cases.

Our firm represented the mother of Amadou Diallo, in the video below, New York Police Brutality Lawyer Anthony Gair discusses police misconduct, stop and frisk and racial profiling in an interview with Court TV.

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Cleveland%20Police.jpgA 12 year old boy who was killed by a Cleveland Police Officer is the last victim of a long history of police brutality in the city of Cleveland. A year and half ago the feds launched an investigation of the Cleveland Police Department after several high profile use of force incidents and numerous public demands for a federal investigation by civic leaders and local politicians. The Justice Department released their report Thursday afternoon. The report found that officers used on a regular basis unjustifiable force not only against criminals but also against innocent victims of crime. Among the allegations, the feds report that Cleveland officers in recent years punched a handcuffed 13 year old boy who was shoplifting. They also shot an unarmed kidnapping victim who was only wearing his underwear.

Read more in the Huffington Post.

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medication%20error.jpgMedication error in psychiatric practice can be medical malpractice. In a recent study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and funds from the Recovery Act, researchers found that patients between the age of 15 and 40 years old who suffered a first-episode psychosis were not prescribed a medication treatment complying with the recommended guidelines for their condition. According to the guidelines, patients with a first episode of psychosis should be treated differently than those with recurrent episodes.

Researchers are calling for more prescriber education after they studied 404 individuals suffering from an initial schizophrenia episode and found that 159 of them were not prescribed an appropriate treatment. Among these 159 people, 8.8 percent were prescribed higher-than-recommended doses of antipsychotics; 23.3 percent were prescribed more than one antipsychotic; 36.5 percent were prescribed an antipsychotic and an antidepressant without a clear need for the antidepressant; 10.1 percent were prescribed psychotropic medications without an antipsychotic medication; and 1.2 percent were prescribed stimulants. In addition, 32.1 percent were prescribed olanzapine, a medication not recommended for first-episode patients. Some of the 159 fell into multiple categories.

Read more in the press release of the National Institutes of Health

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sleep%20depravation.jpgSleep deprivation is not only responsible for many traffic accidents daily but experts now believe that it also played a role in previous catastrophic accidents such as the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, the Staten Island Ferry crash and the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown. In “Sleepless in America” a two hours documentary that started Sunday, The National Geographic Channel in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and The Public Good Projects indicate that 40% of people in America do not get enough sleep. Not only can this condition lead to irreparable health damage but it can also have dramatic consequences especially for people who are operating heavy machinery or for people who are on the road.

Read more in the Washington Post and see trailer below

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Blima Friedman died and her pregnant mother suffered personal injury after they were hit by a 22 year old driver who was working as a valet parker yesterday night around 9 pm in Brooklyn. The two pedestrians were crossing 60th street midblock between 17th Ave and 18th Ave when the accident happened (read more in the NY Daily News.

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Health%20tech.jpgDevice-related hazards can lead to medical malpractice. In its 2015 top 10 Health Technology hazards, ECRI Institute lists 10 safety topics deemed crucial for hospitals to address. Here is the list of the top 10 technology hazards;

1. Alarm hazard: inadequate alarm configuration policies and practice 2. Data integrity: incorrect or missing data in EHR’s and other Health IT Systems 3. Mix-Up of IV lines leading to misadministration of drugs and and solutions 4. Inadequate reprocessing of endoscopes and surgical instruments 5. Ventilator disconnections not caught because of mis-set or missed alarms 6. Patient-handling device use errors and device failures 7. “Dose Creep”: unnoticed variations in diagnostic radiation exposures 8. Robotic surgery: complications due to insufficient training 9. Cyber security: insufficient protections for medical devices and systems 10. Overwhelmed recall and safety-alert management program

In future blogs we will look at each of these medical technology hazards in detail.