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 brooklyn wrongful death

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toddler killed by van locationA toddler was fatally struck by a van in New York City. The pedestrian accident occured yesterday around 12:45 pm in Bath Beach, Brooklyn, NYC. The van which was delivering candies and had Kittles and Starbust logos on it, was making a turn from Bay 25th street onto Benson Avenue when he ran over the 3-year-old Emur Shavkator who was riding a small green scooter. The boy was with his mom and another child. His mother was frantically trying to pull him from underneath the van. When the EMS arrived the boy was unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The van driver wasn’t exercising due care and killed the young pedestrian

The driver of the van, 61 year old Johnny Gonzalez of Bensonhurst, stayed at the scene of the accident. He was arrested and charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care. There is a stop sign just before the sidewalk where the van struck the young boy. However according to a crossing guard working nearby who spoke with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, many drivers in the area are behaving dangerously. “I see drivers do stupid things here all the time. They race by me, they run lights, stop signs and sometimes I try to get their license plates, but it happens so fast,” she said. “I hope we can find a way for people to just slow down.” Residents also confirmed that drivers were constantly blowing the stop sign on Bay 25th Street.

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bike lane proposalAfter Mathew von Ohlen was killed by a hit and run driver while biking on Grand Street, his family and the Brooklyn Community Board 1 called for a protected bike lane.  A total of four people have been fatally struck by cars on Grand Street since 2010.

A new design including two protected bike lanes and a bus lane was proposed by the DOT  as an L Train shutdown mitigation measure. In reality, the DOT hastily installed a bike lane that wasn’t fully implemented and that stayed in limbo after it was decided that the L train would not be fully shut-down. The actual bike lane is only protected by plastic delineators. Cars and delivery trucks are constantly passing the delineators and parking on the bike lane forcing cyclists to make dangerous maneuvers to ride around them. Residents and businesses have both been asking their community board to improve the actual situation which according to them is chaotic.

Bike lane plans kept and extended

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A young construction worker fatally fell from a building in New York City last Wednesday. 23 year old Erik Mendoza was replacing bricks underneath a water tower located on the rooftop of  1 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights when he fell off the building. A Mexican immigrant, Mendoza had arrived in the US 5 years ago.  He had just started his job as a construction worker for the building a week before the accident.

No permit required doesn’t mean no worker protection

The work Mendoza was doing wasn’t didn’t require a permit, however it is the responsibility of the employer to make sure that employees effectuate their work in safe conditions. As he was working under the water tower with a colleague, he slipped and fell 13 stories, landing in front of the entrance of the luxury co-op pre-war building.

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Location of the hit and run truck accidentA pedestrian was fatally struck by a truck in New York City on Wednesday morning and the driver fled the scene of the accident. The accident occurred a little bit before 5:00 am at the dangerous intersection of Flatbush Ave and Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn.
67 year old Linda Douglas was in the crosswalk on Flatbush Ave when a flatbed tractor trailer that was traveling northbound on Flatbush hit her. The truck driver never stooped leaving the victim dying in the street. Lina was a nursing assistant in Harlem and she was commuting to work when the accident occurred. She was living with her husband John Douglas in East Brooklyn.  Originally from Aruba, the couple had moved to the US in 1970. Linda was a few weeks away from retirement. Her husband was devastated. “Linda was the most beautiful, giving, loving person I’ve ever met in this world,” Douglas said to the Gothamist.
During the day, the police released the footage of a surveillance camera showing the truck hoping that someone could provide information. They finally located the driver on Wednesday night. His identity wasn’t released. The police said they questioned the man and released him a few hours later without charging him after he told the police he didn’t know that he hit the victim. John Douglas whom the police called around midnight to announce that they found the driver, couldn’t believe that the driver was able to walk away that easily after he had killed his wife.
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location of the fatal car accidentA 63 woman died in a car accident in New York City. Patricia Lancaster, a Brooklyn real estate agent was driving home from work.
As she was crossing East 56th Street and Avenue J, a speeding 19 year-old driver drove through the red light and t-boned her car. The woman was rushed to the hospital but she didn’t survive.
The teenage driver stayed at the scene of the accident and so far hasn’t been charged.
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A 19 year old driver died and two teen passengers were injured in a car accident in New York City. The accident occurred Tuesday afternoon around 4:30 pm.  19 year old Claudio Poggy was speeding in a Mercedes. Two of his friends aged 16 and 19 year-old were on board. According to witnesses, he was drag racing. As he was speeding north on Kings Highway, Brooklyn, the driver lost control of his vehicle and hit a tree at the intersection with avenue D. The impact was so brutal that the driver died at the scene of the accident. The 16 year old passenger suffered critical injury and the 19 year old one minor injuries. Investigators found that the speedometer was stuck on 130 mph on the unregistered Mercedes.

Male teen driver with teen passengers is a deadly combination

The risk of car accidents is higher among 16 to 19 year-old drivers than among any other age group. Car accidents are indeed the leading cause of death for American teens. According to statistics 6 teenagers die and hundreds of them are injured every day in car accidents in the US. The risk of dying in car accidents is two times higher for male drivers than for female drivers. When another teen is on board with a teen driver, the risk of a fatal crash doubles and increases further when more teen passengers are in the car.

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accident sceneThe driver who fatally struck an 85 year old woman in Brooklyn, NYC, last Wednesday had previously received 10 tickets for speeding in a school zone and two for running red lights. The police haven’t filed any charges against the driver. The daughter is furious and wants the driver charged. She believes that a bill such as the “Reckless Driver Accountability Act” proposed by Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander would help stop reckless driving in New York and could have prevented the death of her mother. The bill was proposed last year by Councilman Brad Lander after a reckless driver killed Abigail Blumenstein and Joshua Lew in Park Slope. Stella Clinton was backed over by the reckless driver as she was walking home from her Brooklyn parish church after an Ash Wednesday service. The accident occurred on Avenue S near Brown Street, in Marine Park, Brooklyn.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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memorial for NYC victim of bike accidentA 25 year old bicyclist was fatally struck by a hit and run truck driver in NYC.  Aurilla  Lawrence was fatally hit by a gas tanker truck near the intersection of Broadway and Rodney Street in Williamsburg last Thursday night around 11:30 pm. The driver fled the scene of the accident and so far is still at large. Lawrence was a beloved member of the bike messengers community who  nicknamed her  “Aurilla Gorilla”.

Last Sunday around 200 bike messengers and street safety advocates organized a memorial ride on the streets of New York to commemorate the victim. Bicyclists met at Lenox Avenue in Harlem and rode their bikes South on Fifth Avenue toward Union Square. The Union Square Park is an area where Lawrence used to hang with fellow bike messengers in between deliveries. As a tribute to her, the bike-a-thon made a stop at the park and  participants raised their bikes to her memory.

Then the 200 cyclists continued their way toward Brooklyn. They crossed the Williamsburg bridge to ultimately arrive at the location of the accident where a ghost bike and a makeshift memorial were installed.  The participants gathered around the memorial and paid tribute to their beloved co-worker.

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Pickup truck accident locationA pedestrian was fatally struck by a pick up truck in New York City last Friday around 5 pm.  51 year old Jose Rubi was crossing Maspeth Avenue in Bushwick when he was hit by a 46 year old man driving a 2015 Ford pick up. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged. According to the police, the driver was attempting to make a left turn onto Vandervoort Ave when he struck Rubi. He told the police that he didn’t see the victim.

The police blamed the victim for crossing “mid block”. However it is unclear how the police could determine that the pedestrian was crossing mid-block while the driver testified that that the accident occurred as he was making a left turn at the intersection.

After the accident, the pedestrian was rushed to a nearby hospital but he didn’t survive his injuries.

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Brooklyn Fatal Construction AccidentA hard hat died in a forklift accident in New York City last month. 44 year old Over Paredes was working on the construction site of a six-story condo located  at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn when a piece of metal-framed wall fell on him.

The accident occurred on the rooftop of the building during a day of high wind.  The large piece of sheet metal was extremely heavy and was being hoisted by a manual forklift. During the lifting operation, the forklift that, according to a worker, was lighter than the piece of wall, was knocked down onto its side by a gust of wind and the huge piece of wall fell on Paredes.  The construction worker died at the scene of the accident despite all the efforts of the EMS to try to rescucitate him.

The crane operator had previously refused to hoist the piece because of the high wind