According to the medical records of the psychiatric emergency room at Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, New York, a patient named Esmin Elizabeth Green, who had been brought to the hospital almost 24 hours earlier but had not yet been seen by a doctor, was sitting quietly in a chair. In fact, she was already dead. The hospital chart also says that she got up to walk to the bathroom when she was actually writhing on the floor. How do we know the truth? Because unlike most instances of medical malpractice, this apparent fiasco is captured on the hospital’s own surveillance videotape. (more…)
Golf carts have become much faster and more powerful - some can reach 25 mph and travel over 40 miles on a single battery charge. Golf carts are now routinely used for transportation purposes at sporting events, hospitals, airports, national parks, college campuses, businesses and military bases. In many gated and retirement communities, golf carts have become the primary means of transportation. According to a study published in the July 2008 issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, from 1990 until 2006, nearly 150,000 people, as young as 2 months and as old as 96 years, were injured in golf cart-related accidents. The number of golf cart–related injuries increased more than 130 percent over that period, from an estimated 5772 cases in 1990 to an estimated 13,411 cases in 2006. (more…)
The 2008 report of the New York City Child Fatality Review Team (CFRT) looks retrospectively at injury deaths for the years 2001 through 2006 for New York City children aged 1 to 12 years. The single largest contributor to child injury deaths overall and to unintentional deaths are motor vehicle accidents, especially those involving child pedestrians. Fire and burn-related deaths were the second leading contributor to unintentional injury deaths and the leading contributor to fatal child injuries in the home. (more…)
Rollover crashes constitute 3 percent of passenger vehicle crashes, but about one third of the fatalities. Injuries can occur even if there is minimal roof deformation after a crash. At other times vehicle occupants are unharmed even if there is significant roof deformation. A recent study performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has demonstrated the inadequacy of the proposed federal rule to increase a vehicle’s roof strength from 1.5 times to 2.5 times the weight of a car. The study concludes that 212 of the 668 deaths involved in rollover accidents in 2006 could have been prevented if SUVs had roofs as strong as the best one it tested, more than 3 times the vehicle’s weight. Increasing the standard from 1.5 to 2.5 would have saved 108 lives. (more…)
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has signed legislation establishing a new Fire Code for the City of New York, effective July 1, 2008. It is the first comprehensive revision since the City’s Fire Code was adopted in 1913. The Fire Code, enforced by the Fire Department, governs emergency preparedness and planning and more specifically the permit and inspection process for the use of building safety systems such as sprinklers, fire detectors and extinguishers. (more…)
When players or spectators are injured at sporting events, a common and often successful defense alleged by the team or stadium owner is that the person injured assumed the risk of injury; in other words that the injury is considered to be an acceptable risk understood and known to the injured person. Another common defense is that the defendant did not have any notice of the dangerous condition prior to the occurrence so as to permit it the opportunity to correct or warn about it. But with a great number of maple bats litterally shattering (a much more dangerous phenominom than a more traditional ash bat breaking) causing injuries to uniformed personnel and fans seated in the stands, it is questionable whether these defenses would be successful. (more…)
Families of the firefighters who died in last summer’s fire at the former Deutsche Bank building held a demonstration at the Manhattan site yesterday morning to call for construction site safety and reform throughout New York City. Meanwhile, a Kodiak crane owned by New York Crane at a Washington Street construction site is being dismantled after inspectors found two cracks in the turntable of the tower crane. Kodiak cranes owned by New York Crane were involved in fatal crane collapses that occurred on March 15, 2008, and May 30, 2008. These developments and others make all the more critical passage of the aggressive legislative agenda that will equip the Buildings Department with additional oversight and enforcement powers to further the safety of New Yorkers and construction workers, (more…)
The new President of the New York State Bar Association Bernice Leber, noting that the number of criminal convictions overturned in New York State is undermining public confidence in the justice system, recently announced the creation of a Task Force on Wrongful Convictions. The task force will study the systemic, procedural and statutory causes that contribute to wrongful convictions and propose solutions to this growing problem, and will begin work immediately. (more…)
New research from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has found June through August to be the deadliest time of year for 15-passenger van occupants, due to rollover crashes. Statistics show that 31 percent of fatal rollovers involving 15-passenger vans occur during the busy summer travel months. The NHTSA also emphasizes that conventional 12 to15-passenger vans cannot be used as school buses because they are not certified to carry students on a regular basis, and thus cannot be sold or leased as new vehicles to carry students on a regular basis. (more…)
It seems that troubling news regarding the construction industry and construction accidents in New York City are heard on a daily basis. 15 people in construction-related accidents have been killed in the city so far this year, compared with 12 in all of 2007. After the second of two recent crane collapses within 12 weeks of each other during which period the city held its 4th annual Construction Safety Week, a window into the world of New York City Buildings Department crane inspections and inspectors has been opened. Nine people, all but one of them construction workers, died in the two crane collapses. (more…)