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 New York Construction Accident

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 Two construction workers were injured after they fell from a building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan yesterday afternoon. The construction workers where  working on the $50 million renovation of the World Diamond   Tower  building  on Fifth Avenue  and W. 47th St.   They fell from the second floor mezzanine inside the building.  The FDNY has asked the City Department of Buildings to investigate whether a partial collapse of the mezzanine led to the fall. Read more in  The New York Daily News 

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 The construction accident happened in a famous building of the Diamond District.  Picture courtesy of Google map 

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A construction worker died after he fell down an elevator shaft in New York. The accident happened yesterday at the beginning of the afternoon at the construction site of a future hotel located at 577 9th Avenue near 41st Street in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.

According to DNA Info the construction worker  was not wearing a harness at the time of the accident. He was working on the fourth floor near the elevator shaft which, at the time, was just a hole that extended all the way to the ground. He fell in and landed on his back. The man who was 30 years old was transported to the hospital in critical condition. He later died.

A few months ago the general contractor for the construction site, BRF Construction Corp, was fined for failing to secure the site after a construction worker was spotted on a 15 to 20 foot wall without a harness. BRF employed non union workers.

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Last April, 22 year old Carlos Moncayo died in a construction accident in New York because two construction managers put profit over safety.  According to the NY Daily News, on April 6th, Christian Ofusu, an independent engineer assigned to oversee the work on a Ninth Ave site in the Meatpacking district warned Alfonso Prestia, the construction site superintendent, that the site was too dangerous and that it should be shut down. Prestia ignored the engineer’s warning so Ofusu went to voice his concerns to foreman Wilmer Cueva who also refused to stop the work. Moments later, as Ofusu was trying to convince the project manager, Mohamad Sharif to shut down the site, a wall collapsed and crushed Carlos Moncaya to death. Cuevas who works for Sky Materials Corp and Prestia who works for Hartco Consultants Corp have both been indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide, manslaughter and reckless endangerment.

Yesterday another wall collapsed on a construction site in Nolita, downtown Manhattan, injuring two construction workers (see NY Daily News) and the day before a construction worker was seriously injured after falling two-stories at a construction site in Hudson Yards on the west side of Manhattan (see previous blog).

 

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A worker was injured in a construction accident Friday in New York City. The accident happened at the Red Hook East Houses on Henry Street in Brooklyn, NYC. The worker was standing on scaffolding on the second floor when an AC Unit fell on him. The cooling unit was being removed from the sixth floor by other workers when it fell. The construction worker was transported to the hospital. He suffered non life threatening trauma and was hospitalized in stable condition. Read more in the NY Daily News

Red Hook East Houses

Red Hook East Houses, picture: Google Maps

 

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Christian GinelliChristian Genesi, a 25 year old construction worker, fell 24 stories to his death at the beginning of May  as he was riding a temporary hoist to get to the top of a hotel that was being built on 8th Ave.  The city building inspectors who have been investigating the case found out that the hoist temporarily lost power that day and that the electrical system that powered it was installed without a permit. The elevator relied on “unapproved, unsafe, unsuitable electrical equipment” that shouldn’t have been in use, documents show.New York Wrongful Death Lawyer Howard Hershenhorn

Howard Hershenhorn was quoted in the NY Daily News stating “It’s obvious that this is an enormous tragedy, which could have absolutely been prevented had basic safety measures been put in place,” he also added Ginesi wouldn’t have died “had there been safety netting, had there been safety harness and had there been a working electrical system.” “There’s blatant violations of multiple laws in the State of New York, which caused this senseless death,” he also said.

Read the complete article here

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Two construction workers as well as several pedestrians and car passengers suffered personal injury in a crane accident in New York yesterday morning. The crane was hauling an air conditioning unit of the size of a shipping container to the top floor of a 30-story building at 261 Madison Avenue, N.Y.C. when a rigging strap broke. The unit first crashed into the side of the building before landing on Madison Avenue between 38th and 39th streets. 10 people were injured by the falling debris. The crane operating company, Skylift, had a similar accident in 2010 during which no one was injured and received two serious OSHA violations.

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New York Crane AccidentA knuckle boom crane fell on a construction worker and killed him yesterday afternoon on a construction site located at 219 E. 44th Street near Second Avenue, New York City. The crane was fitted on a truck parked in front of the building and was used to unload material that was being delivered to the construction site. 40 year old Trevor Loftus , was standing on top of the flatbed truck holding his phone when the articulated arm fell on him and killed him. Loftus served as the crane safety coordinator for Kenry Contracting of Yonkers which is his own company. According to the Buildings Department, construction material was being lifted off the truck when a mechanical failure caused the arm to collapse and killed the construction worker.
Read more in the NY Daily News 
Picture: Buck Ennis

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construction accident7 people died in construction accidents in New York City since the beginning of the year. This is almost as many as  during all of 2014 a year during which 8 fatal construction accidents were recorded.  A 22 year old construction worker died on April 6th at a construction site where the restaurant Pastis used to be in the meatpacking district. The young worker was digging below the foundation of the building when dirt fell on him and buried him up to his neck. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead upon his arrival. A day later 4  construction workers suffered serious personal injury during an accident at a demolition site located at 331 Madison Avenue near 43rd street. A chandelier and a heavy marble banister collapsed on the workers after they fell from a height of about two stories while doing interior demolition. The week before a construction worker fell to his death in Brighton Beach. Two people—not workers—died after a suspicious explosion this week in an apartment building where plumbers were working on gas lines. In March a pedestrian died after being hit by a  piece of plywood that detached from a construction site security fence . In February a construction worker installing grass on the Barclay Center in Brooklyn was crushed to death by falling beams and in January another worker fell to his death down an elevator shaft on the Upper West Side.

According to Crain’s New York, 19 people died in construction accidents in 2008 during the last real estate boom in New York City. When comparing the number of construction-related accidents and deaths in 2014 with 2008, the figures show that construction sites aren’t necessarily getting any safer. Though there has been a dramatic drop in deaths, from 19 in 2008 to eight in 2014, the number of accidents has spiked  to 231 from 151 over the same time period, a jump of more than 50%. Last year, the city issued about 142,000 building permits, up 20% from 2008. Combined with the deaths-to-date this year, the potential for increasing construction activity “puts this year on track to be another fatal one,” Crain’s reported.
Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

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Construction worker advocates joined forces last week at the Legislative Office Building in Albany to support the Scaffold Law (Labor Law Section 240(1) ) and the proposed “Sunshine Bill” which would require liability insurance providers to file financial statements and claims data with the state’s superintendent of financial services. Assemblyman Francisco Moya, D-Queens, Assemblyman Marcos Crespo, D-Bronx, and representatives of the Scaffold Safety Coalition want to challenge the long standing argument that the Scaffold Law increases insurance rates by forcing insurance companies to release claims data. Read more in the Legislative Gazette

To learn more about the actual state of the New York Scaffold Law see below video from a presentation on this subject by New York Construction Accident Lawer  Anthony Gair

 

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Build Safe NYCThe NYC department of Building just announced that the Construction Safety week will start Monday April 27th 2015 with the Build Safe / Live Safe conference. In this daylong series of seminars, Department experts will discuss industry trends and highlight safe construction operations.  Professional credit will be available. Tickets can be purchased here.