A 74 year old woman was dragged under a tour bus yesterday in New York and suffered critical injuries to her head and legs. The woman was crossing Seventh Ave at 14th Street when a CitySights NY tour bus struck her while turning =South onto Seventh Ave.
This is the second time this year that a pedestrian was struck by a tour bus. Last January, Alexander Shear, 73, died after being struck by a Tour Bus on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (see previous blog)
A young man suffered serious personal injury after he took a dip in the ocean and nearly drowned yesterday night in Coney Island. The weather was very warm last night in New York and according to the New York Daily News the 29 year old man decided to jump off the Steeplechase Pier (picture) at 2:30 am to join two other women who were already in the water. After he jumped, the man went down and didn’t emerge. NYPD and the Fire Department searched the area for an hour before finding the man, unconscious 14 blocks away. He was rushed to the Hospital in critical condition.
Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia
To reduce costs of medical malpractice in the Bronx, NYC, Judge Douglas McKeon helped launch in 2002 a pilot program to address lawsuits against municipal hospitals. The program uses judges who are specially trained to negotiate early settlements in medical malpractice cases and decreases the costs associated with trials and appeals.
This program will now be expanded to New York State and Judge Douglas McKeon will supervise the expansion. The program supported by New york City Health and Hospital Corp. will allow plaintiffs and defendant hospitals to go to a judge to mediate disputes in a controlled environment.
In 2010 the Obama Administration said the program contains medical costs and liabilities. If adopted nationwide it could potentially save the country a billion dollars per year.
To reduce IV medication errors and possible contamination, the Belmont’s St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, NYC, just acquired a high-tech medication machine that uses robots to fill syringes, sanitize intravenous medications and make sure that patients receive the proper medication.
When an error occurs with intravenous medication, harmful effects to the patient may happen faster and be more severe than errors with oral medications, due the direct administration into the bloodstream.
The RIVA system acquired by the hospital is a fully automated IV compounding system used by hospital pharmacies to prepare intravenous medication (syringes and IV bags) for general hospital needs, chemotherapy and pediatric needs.
16 year old Oscar Hernandez suffered catastrophic personal injury as the result of the gas explosion accident that happened last March in Harlem, New York. 3 months later he is still in the hospital recovering from severe burns, broken bones and internal injuries. Oscar was in the coma for 11 days and has no recollection of the gas explosion. He woke up in the hospital to hear that his mom and sister had passed. Today the New York Daily News wrote a touching article about the difficulty endured by Oscar Hernandez and his family to overcome this tragedy. Read the article here
A small plane crashed in a backyard in Long Island this morning, killing the pilot who was alone in the plane. Apparently the pilot managed to steer his plane between two houses before crashing in the backyard of one of them on Camille Lane in Suffolk County’s East Patchogue. A mother was attending to an infant in the house. Thankfully they were not injured. (read more here)
NBC 4 New York has obtained exclusive video of the aftermath of the deadly plane crash on Long Island. Note: Audio has been removed.
Falls are the number one cause of death in the construction industry and construction companies are required by law to provide adequate fall protection to their workers. After OSHA received a complaint of imminent danger on a construction site, the agency started to investigate Kay Waterproofing Corp. a masonry and waterproofing contractor located in the Bronx, NYC. OSHA discovered that the contractor was exposing its workers to serious fall hazards and cited Kay Waterproofing Corp. for 13 serious safety violations that included fall and scaffolding hazards. Other violations included failure to provide eye protection for employees chipping and cutting masonry; failure to provide hard hats where overhead hazards existed; failure to ensure equipment had an electrical grounding pin and was properly guarded and protected; and failure to ensure ladders were used for the designed purpose and were not defective.
Read more in the OSHA news release
A construction worker died recently after plunging 5 stories down an elevator shaft on a New York construction site. The worker was wearing a safety harness but he wasn’t connected to a lifeline. A second worker was also injured as he plunged from the second to the first floor. The site, a 6-story new building under construction, was hit with a stop work order by the Department of Buildings.
Falls is the deadliest hazard in the construction industry. The accident happened during the OSHA National Safety Stand-Down to Prevent Falls in Construction.
Read more in CBS New York
When a doctor is sanctioned for medical malpractice in New York there is a high probability that he will be able to continue to practice. There is also a good chance that his patients will never know about their doctor’s punishment. A recent NYPIRG report entitled “Questionable Doctors” shows that the New York State Department of Heath’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC) is not doing enough to protect patients. The report also proposes recommendations for improvement.
The report found that:
A 22 year old Brooklyn supermarket worker was crushed to death by a forklift yesterday. According to the media, Gustavo Tapia was using an electric pallet stacker to push a Yale forklift up a ramp leading to the rooftop of Moisha’s Discount Supermarket on Ave M in Borough Park, Brooklyn when the forklift suddenly rolled backward and pinned the young worker against the wall. Gustavio Tapia suffered fatal chest injury and was pronounced dead when he arrived at the hospital.
Read more in the Gothamist and the NY Daily News
New York Personal Injury Attorneys Blog