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.

Articles Tagged with personal injury

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skeleton athleteWhile there has been a lot of media and medical attention in regards to traumatic brain injury related to football boxing or other contact sports, there are other sports that have a high risk of TBI.

A recent article in the New York Times looks at traumatic brain injury caused by skeleton, the headfirst Olympic sledding sport. Skeleton is very popular in Canada. In 2010 when Canada hosted the Olympic games, skeleton athletes thought they had a great advantage as they had early access to the track and could train for unlimited time.  Instead many of them are still suffering from the long term consequences of  traumatic brain injuries caused by over training.

Mellissa Hollingsworth was one of the favorite skeleton competitors this year. She recalls taking as many as 11 runs a day on the Whistler track that was specifically built for the Olympic games and was the fastest in the word. At the end of a training day, her brain was scrambled. She could not tolerate noises and she could barely speak. At the time, skeleton athletes were experiencing mental fog, headache, speech inability, loss of appetite and high sensibility to sound. They thought it was part of the training routine like sore muscles or fatigue and just casually called it “sled head”. Now years later they are still suffering from the consequences of over training, repetitive shaking and crashing head first on icy surfaces.

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garden hose injuriesEvery summer emergency room doctors and vets treat cases of children and pets who suffered burn injuries from scalding garden hose water. Water sitting in a garden hose under the sun for hours can reach scalding temperature that can burn children or pets. During a heat wave it is common for kids to play with the garden hose to refresh or for parents to use it to fill the kiddie pool or to spray their pets.  When doing so, parents should make sure to let the water run and check the temperature before using the hose.

A few days ago a mother in Florida was charged with child neglect resulting in great bodily harm after she neglected to seek treatment for her toddler who suffered permanent scaring from burn injuries after he was sprayed with hot water from a hose. According to Yahoo News, Jessica Smith a 24 year old divorced mother, admitted that her child was sprayed with hot water from a hose by another kid but she didn’t seek medical care because she was afraid that the Department of Children and Families (DFC) would get involved and that she would loose custody of the child.  The child’s father described the child as “permanently disfigured” by the burns and he alerted the DFC.

Similar accidents occurred in the past. A few years ago the Las Vegas Fire Rescue team circulated the picture of a 9 month-old boy who was accidentally burned by his mom as she was filling the kiddie pool and accidentally sprayed him.  The child had to be treated for second-degree burn injuries.

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person-holding-hand-sanitizer-396233175 dangerous hand sanitizers that are being sold at major retailers such as CVS, Wallmart and others have been recalled by the FDA. The dangerous products contained methanol, also known as wood alcohol. When absorbed by the skin or swallowed, methanol can lead to severe injury such as blindness neurological damage or even death. The FDA has received several reports of consumers including children who suffered personal injury or died  after being exposed to these dangerous products.

Please check your hand sanitizer  and make sure it is not part of the list released by the FDA.

Some of the products recalled were sold under the following brands: Good Gel, Lavar 70, Saniderm, CleanCare, All-Clean and Eskbiochem. All these brands are manufactured by the same Mexican company Eskbiochem SA de CV.

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construction workers are at risk of heat strokeInjuries related to heat stroke and dehydration can sometimes be life-threatening.

Therefore anyone active under the sun should always hydrate proprely and know the symptoms of a heat stroke so activities can be stopped before its too late.

Heat stroke or Hyperthermia occurs when the body didn’t get enough fluid and cannot cool down anymore or regulate its own temperature.

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Construction job with the highest risk of fall injuriesFall is the number one cause of death for construction workers. Every year in America, 10,000 construction workers suffer serious injuries and 200 die in fall accidents. To raise awareness about this problem, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) are organizing a yearly national campaign: The National Safety Stand-Down. The event lasts several days during which every construction company owner is invited to spend a day or at least a few hours with their employees to review fall safety protection.  Thousands of construction companies are participating every year reaching millions of construction workers.

This year the event was supposed to be organized  in May but many construction businesses were shut down because of the Covid-19 crisis. Therefore the 7th National Safety Stand-Down to prevent Falls has been moved to the 14th to 18th of September 2020.

For this year, the organizers suggest that the event be held virtually or that companies owners make sure that construction workers social distance during the stand-down. Video and webinar might be a good way to keep the stand-down safe for all.

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Spinal Cord InjurySpinal cord injuries result in damages that are  often irreversible or require patients to spend a very long time in a hospital setting for rehabilitation. Existing technologies used to rehab patients suffering from spinal cord injury are often heavy and can not be used in a home setting. However a recent headset prototype created by a Biomedical Engineering PhD student at the University of Glasgow,  brings new hope to spinal cord injury patients.

Nina Petric-Gray used 3D printing technology to produce a light electroencephalography (EEG) headset  designed to help restore hand functions. The headset sends low-energy electrical pulse to artificially generate body movement and record the electrical activity of the brain allowing long distance medical monitoring.

When she started her project, the PhD student modified gaming headsets, adding electrodes to record the brain activity. The prototype was heavy and uncomfortable. The student also found that it was difficult to accurately place the electrodes for optimal recording.  The idea was good but a real bespoke prototype needed to be created for this particular use. The student used a product design software to create a light usable prototype allowing for optimal electrode placement.  After the product design was finalized the student used 3D technology to bring it to life.  With 3D printing, there is no need for a mold anymore and every headset can be customized for each patient’s head with optimal electrodes placement.

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excavation work in NYC streetsToo many construction workers are still being injured or dying while working in trenches or excavations. A new video by OSHA on excavation and trenching safety looks at previous violations and how to prevent them.

While doing excavation, construction workers are facing multiple hazards. Cave in hazard is the most dangerous one.  Unfortunately  many construction workers are injured or die in trenches because of negligence. Failure to respect excavation requirements is the 6th most common violation in the construction industry behind fall protection (general requirement), scaffolding, ladders, fall protection training and eye and face protection.

While looking at violations related to excavation and trenching the most common one is failure to protect employees in excavations with 809 citations in 2019. OSHA requires employers to set up specific protective systems such as shoring for workers in excavations however too many employers are still cutting corners as the high number of violations demonstrates.

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water injury preventionAs summer season is back, water related injuries and deaths are starting to increase. In New York, the underwater currents at Rockaway Beach are known to be dangerous and ever year people are seriously injured or died after drowning in the water at this location. This year on May 22nd, 24 year old Fidel Ramirez, went for a swim at Beach 91st street despite recommendations from Mayor de Blasio not to go in the water and drowned. He suffered critical drowning injuries and died at the hospital.

Backyard pools might seem safer than the Rockaway beach especially with the actual Covid-19 pandemic, however they can be dangerous as well.  Last Sunday 3 people died from drowning in a backyard pool in New Jersey.

Behind car accidents, drowning is the second cause of unintentional injury-related death for children from 1 to 14 year old

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child-head-injuy-1Because young children can’t express themselves proprely it can be challenging for doctors to diagnose a traumatic brain injury or concussion.  A recent article published in Pediatric Emergency Care suggests that using previous “Characteristics of Diagnosed Concussions in Children Aged 0 to 4 Years Presenting to a Large Pediatric Healthcare Network” might be helpful. The study was authored by Podolak, Olivia E. MD*; Chaudhary, Sofia MD*,†; Haarbauer-Krupa, Juliet PhD; Metzger, Kristina B. PhD, MPH*; Curry, Allison E. PhD, MPH*,†; Kessler, Ronni S. MEd*; Pfeiffer, Melissa R. MPH*; Breiding, Matthew J. PhD; Master, Christina L. MD, CAQSM, FACSM*,§,∥; Arbogast, Kristy B. PhD*,†,§

The researchers analyzed the medical data of 329 young patients aged 0 to 4 who visited the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia healthcare network from October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2015 . They identified  the 3 top common mechanisms of injury.

The first one was fall and represented 64.4 % of all young patients who were diagnosed with a concussion with children younger than 2 year old being at a higher risk of sustaining a concussion in a fall than children from 2 to 4 year old.  Falling from furniture was the most common type of fall leading to traumatic brain injury, followed by tripping and hitting the ground and falling down the stairs.

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child head injuryWhen a child sustains head injury, parents always worry about the risk of traumatic brain injury and now more than ever seek medical advice through telephone triage call systems. When parents call such systems, they will be connected to a triage nurse who will provide them with recommendations on what to do next. However the question is, how parents follow up on these recommendations. A recent study  by PhD, RN, FAANorcidMPHMSN, RN, CRNPPhDMD, FAAP, CAQSM published in Clinical Nursing Research, tried to determine if parents follow recommendations and what percentage of the phone calls result in a TBI diagnostic.  They especially wanted to know if parents who had been recommended to see a doctor because a traumatic brain injury was suspected, would indeed do it.

84.1% of parents follow phone recommendations to seek medical care for their child’s head injury

The researchers analyzed one year of pediatric head injury calls at the Barton Schmitt Pediatric Head Injury Telephone Triage Protocol. Among the 5,045 phone calls for patients ages 17 and younger and meeting the criteria for the study, they found 2, 464 calls during which the triage nurse recommended to seek medical care urgently or in the next 24 hours. They estimated that in 84.1% of cases parents followed the recommendations provided on the phone and brought their children for an urgent medical consultation at their medical home network or at an outside care facility. Among those children who were recommended to seek urgent care, 39.5% were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury.