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 wrongful death NYC

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location of the bus accidentA 10 year old girl was fatally struck by  a school bus in New York City. The accident occured yesterday morning at 6:45 am at the intersection of Crescent Street and Wortman Avenue in the East New York area.

10 year old Patience Heaven Albert was walking to school with her 15 year old brother. They were in the crosswalk when an empty school bus made a right turn from Crescent Street onto Wortman Ave and struck the young girl. The intersection of Crescrent Street and Wortman is a residential intersection with a four-way stop sign.

Reckless bus driver charged and suspended

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On Monday we wrote about the death of 3 pedestrians over the weekend and now we learned that two additional female pedestrians died after being struck by cars in New York City on Sunday and Monday. Since last Thursday, NYC recorded one pedestrian death everyday and two on Sunday. This is intolerable.

No charge in the Bronx fatality

On Monday night a 59 year old female pedestrian was struck by a car while she was crossing at the intersection of Sampson Ave and Tremont Ave in the Bronx, around 7 pm. The woman whose identity has not been released so far, was rushed to the hospital but could not be saved. The driver stayed at the scene of the accident and wasn’t charged. The police are still investigating the cause of the accident. Read more in PIX11

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Following the increase in fatal bicycle accidents in New York City last year the DOT recently announced that New Yorkers would get 30 more miles of protected bike lanes all over the city this year.

DOT-Protected-bike-lane-BrooklynThe de Blasio administration has so far announced that 10 of the 30 miles would be allocated to Brooklyn and 10 others to Manhattan. In Brooklyn where most fatalities occurred last year, cyclists will soon have protected bike lanes while riding along 4th Avenue north to the Barclay Center, while riding out of the new Kosciuszko Bridge on Meeker Avenue and on Navy Street close to the Brooklyn Navy Yard as well as on Remsen Ave in Canarsie.

On the map released by the DOT at a previous conference (see picture), the pink lines show the protected bike lanes that will be added this year in Brooklyn and the yellow lines show potential protected bike lanes that might be added in 2021. The green lines are the existing bike lanes.  Read more here 

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car-that-killed-jose-contla3 pedestrians died and two other were injured after being hit by motor vehicles in New York City over the weekend. Another pedestrian also died from injuries he sustained earlier in the month last Thursday.

The police are still looking for the reckless speeding hit and run driver who killed a pedestrian in Bensonhurst on Sunday morning around 7:25 am

26 year old Jose Contla was standing next to his vehicle parked on 19th Avenue near 86th Street when a driver hit him and took off. He was on his way to open the family bakery where he was working part time to pay for his degree in criminal justice at John Jay College.  Contla fell on the ground and was found unconscious on the road by the EMTs. He was rushed to the hospital but could not be saved. The police are still looking for the driver of a black sedan (see picture).

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A welder died and another construction worker was seriously injured after a building collapsed on a NYC construction site yesterday.

50 year old David Johnson, a father of two daughters going to college, was working on the demolition of a building located at 147-05 94th Ave in Jamaica, Queens, when the second floor where he was standing collapsed.  Johnson and another unidentified worker were buried in the debris. When firefighters arrived, the condition were so bad that they had to use ladder trucks to free the victims. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Hi co-worker was transported to the hospital with critical injury.

Johnson was an unionized welder with Local 79.  He took the job at the non unionized  demolition site run by the general contractor Cole Partners Inc because it was hard for him to find work. Before the accident, Leslie White, another member of Local 79 who worked as a safety supervisor on another site told him the day before “that thing is going to collapse”. Johnson told her not to worry.

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Two years ago one of our clients, actress Ruthie Ann Miles and her five year old daughter were struck by a reckless driver as they were crossing the street in the crosswalk with the light in their favor. The daughter was killed and the actress who was pregnant at the time of the accident, later on lost the baby she was carrying. Another 1 year old child was also killed in the accident. The driver, Dorothy Burns, had a history of reckless driving. In the year preceding the accident she was caught 4 times speeding in school zone areas and 4 other times running a red light.

Despite the many Vision Zero Initiatives implemented since 2014, the number of people dying in traffic accidents increased again last year after 4 years of decline. Many accidents were caused by reckless driving.

In an effort to address this problem, the City Council is about to adopt a new program that targets reckless drivers. The reckless driving initiative is expected to start as a 3 years pilot. During that time any owner of a vehicle that is charged with 5 red light camera violations or 15 speed camera violations in a year will have to complete a safety course developed by the DOT. If a reckless driver refuses to attend the safety course his vehicle may be seized.

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location of the pedestrian accident in NYCA pedestrian died after being rolled over by a car backing out of a driveway in NYC. The accident occurred at 30-23 69th Street in Jackson Heights, Queens around 6:15 pm on February 2nd. The driver of a Honda backed out of his driveway, struck a 57 year old man who was standing on the sidewalk and rolled over him.  The man was rushed to the hospital but he could not be saved. His identity was not released by the police. The victim is the first pedestrian to die in a car accident in February 2020. Last month 14 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents in New York City: 5 in Brooklyn, 5 in Queens, 2 in the Bronx and 2 in Manhattan.

The driver whose identity wasn’t released either, stayed at the scene of the accident and was not charged.

Drivers must exercise due care while backing out of a driveway especially when it is dark outside

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trucks-kills-cyclist-tweetA cyclist was killed in a truck accident in NYC last week.

41 year old Pedro Lopez is the first cyclist to die in a traffic accident in New York City in 2020. He was killed by a reckless truck driver who was making an illegal U-turn at high speed on Vandervoort Avenue in Brooklyn. The accident occured on Thursday around 2:40 pm. The cyclist was rear ended by the truck. He was rushed to the hospital where he later died from his injuries.

Despite a video showing the recklessness of the truck driver, the police didn’t charge him

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aerial-view-of-the-Grand-Central-Parkway-and-Cross-Island-Parkway-exit3 people died and one person was seriously injured in a wrong-way car accident in Queens, NYC. The accident took place on Saturday morning around 5:40 am. 27 year old Divante New was driving the car of 36 year old Sayquan Hallums who was in the passenger seat. They were driving the wrong way on the Grand Central Parkway near the Cross Island Parkway exit in Queens when they crashed into another car. 26 year old Megan Ann Smith who was in the passenger seat was killed. Her boyfriend who was driving the car was critically injured. The police didn’t release his identity. Megan Ann Smith graduated in 2011 from St. John’s Preparatory School in Astoria, Queens. She was an an honor student and a member of the softball team. Her family declined to talk to the media.

Foggy windshield might have play a role in the deadly accident

According to the brother of Sayquan, the Honda car driven by Divante had an old defective windshield that would fog up easily. He said that when the heat was up inside the car the old windshield would fog up so badly that only Sayquan was able to drive the car.

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41-28-MainA pedestrian was killed by falling debris in New York City. 67 year old Xiang Ji was walking on Main Street near 41st Street in Flushing, Queens Thursday morning around 9:45 am. There was a strong wind and as she walked in front of the building located at 41-28 Main Street, a piece of plywood covered with aluminium detached from the roof and fell on her.

The woman was knocked down on the sidewalk. Witnesses tried to help her until EMS arrived. She was rushed to the hospital but she couldn’t be saved.

The building owner who has 18 violations open with the DOB was slapped with another violation for failure to properly maintain the building. The DOB also required the owner of the building to erect a sidewalk shed on the top of the sidewalk to protect pedestrians from any further problems. The previous violations were mostly related to effectuating work without a permit inside the building. (Picture of the location of the accident: courtesy of Google Map)