When the first crane related disaster occurred in October last year - debris from a crane fell down several stories injuring several people - New Yorkers could have been forgiven for dismissing it as a one-time freak accident. Then, came the considerably more severe crane collapse in March of this year that killed at least seven people, and destroyed buildings in the near vicinity. Now, another crane collapse has been reported in the Upper East Side. This one, it is confirmed, has killed at least two people.

The collapse took place at 8 am this morning at East 91st Street and 1st Avenue. The crane was being used to build a 32-story apartment building just across the street. Apparently, it ripped through the exterior of a 23-story building, and landed in a crumpled mess on the ground below. Early television footage coming in showed part of the crane still standing at its position, and reports said that the remaining part has been checked for stability. The crane operator, 30-year-old Donald Leo of Staten Island, and another worker of the crew, 27-year-old Ramadan Curtis of the Bronx, were killed as the crane crashed down.

Ironically enough, the crane had just passed an inspection the previous day. Members of the neighborhood had complained about the crane hoisted over the street, and officers from the New York Department of Buildings had visited the site. Hoisting a crane over the street is a building code violation. The crane is owned by New York Crane Corp., and was being operated by the DeMatteis Organizations to build an apartment building.

It is obvious that there is systemic negligence in the construction industry. What started as a freak accident has turned into a series of three accidents that have killed a total of nine people and injured many. People walking in the street in the world’s most iconic city should not have to be worried if they are going to be killed or maimed by pieces of crane machinery falling from the sky. In March’s crane collapse, the wayward crane crashed through several buildings in the neighborhood before resting.

How can the safety of residents and office-goers in the neighborhood be compromised in this manner? Mayor Bloomberg has already voiced his outrage at the incident, and has said his administration won’t tolerate a rate of crane accidents higher than it should be. We’re not sure what the acceptable rate for cranes falling from above is, but presumably the limit has been reached a while ago.

There are two families that have lost young earning members of their family in today’s collapse. We hope that the city takes its role in safeguarding its citizens and regulating the construction industry seriously. One could be considered a freak case; two is bad enough; and three accidents in a span of eight months is simply absurd. We hope that those who have been injured by this accident or suffered the loss of their loved ones won’t hesitate to take legal action as quickly as possible. It’s the only way to ensure that this absurdity ends right here.

The family of a woman who died in the bathtub of a hospital has been awarded $5 million in damages by a jury. The settlement has been awarded against Gwinnett Medical Center, located in Gwinnett County, near Atlanta, GA.

Wendy Wyckstandt, a 34-year-old woman, who had just given birth at the hospital after Thanksgiving Day in 2000, had returned after complications brought on by high blood pressure. She was extremely weak, and definitely not in a position to take care of herself. Strangely enough, Wendy was left to shower on her own, and while doing so, collapsed in the tub. Her mother found her drowning in the tub, but it was too late. A day later, she died.

Her mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Gwinnett Health System, the company that owned Gwinnett Medical Center in 2002, alleging that Wendy was left alone, despite being in a very poor health. After a long and arduous six-year-old battle with the hospital, Wendy’s parents have finally received justice. A jury has awarded a $5 million settlement.

It’s been a long wait for Wendy’s parents. The first trial, that began after the lawsuit was filed in 2002, was hampered by plenty of shenanigans by the hospital authorities. The attorney for Wendy’s parents was denied access to hospital medical records and tapes that would have conclusively proven that no nurses had checked up on Wendy. The hospital had insisted all along that its nurses did check in on Wendy regularly, and as scheduled. The first trial ended with a hung jury.

When the second trial began, the judge held the hospital responsible for not handing over all hospital policy records. He has yet to decide on how much to compensate Wendy’s attorneys for the unnecessary research they had to undertake after they were denied access to hospital records. The attorneys had wanted all tapes that captured the last 24 hours of footage from outside Wendy’s room, and were only given access to two tapes. On these tapes, there was a 30 minute period of footage that was blank. According to the hospital, the blank 30 minutes was caused by the change of the tapes, which is a normal occurrence. By a stroke of fantastic coincidence, the nurses who were supposed to check up on Wendy apparently, the hospital says, arrived to check up on her room in that 30-minute period when the tape goes blank.

To Wendy’s attorneys, it seemed like too much of a coincidence that the tape went blank at the exact time that the nurses arrived to do their duty. Luckily, the jury too thought the coincidence was too much to stomach, and has slapped a $5 million settlement on the hospital.

If you have lost a loved one in a fatal accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The mother of a 5-year-old boy, who was voted out of his class Survivor-style encouraged by his class teacher, has voiced her intention of filing a lawsuit against the school administration.

The story of Alex Barton, a Port St. Lucie preschooler - who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, an advanced form of autism, has shocked parents and educators around the country. His classmates were asked by their teacher, Wendy Portillo, to list out all he things that they hated about Alex to his face, and they then voted the boy out of the class, 14-2. Miss Portillo has been watching too many reality shows, besides being an absolutely unfit teacher.

After the incident, Alex, his mother says, was sent to the school office where he sat broken and afraid, waiting for his mother to pick him up. His mother, Melissa, says, since then the child has been petrified at the thought of going back to school, going into hysterics every time they approach the school to drop off a sibling, and telling his mom he feels he’s “not special.”

His mother, who has taken her story nationwide, and even appeared on the CBS Morning Show, is considering her legal options in the case. She has filed a complaint with the school’s resource center for the treatment of her son, but strangely the district attorney’s office has claimed that the case did not meet the criteria of emotional abuse. No charges have been filed against Wendy Portillo.
Shockingly enough, Ms Portillo was not suspended immediately after the incident came to light. She has only now been reassigned while further a course of action is determined.

Melissa says that Alex has had disciplinary problems brought on by his condition. He is currently undergoing evaluation for autism, and the school district and the board have been aware of Alex’s condition. Even Wendy Portillo was present at the meetings and she was aware of Alex’s special needs.

As the mother of a differently abled child, Melissa was no doubt prepared for him to be treated differently at different stages in his life. Autistic children tend to have trouble expressing emotions, giving the impression they have none, which is not the case at all. But to experience such vicious behavior from a teacher in whose care you entrusted your child is inexcusable. No matter how many ways you try to look at Wendy Portillo’s side of things (who by the way, has not defended herself, and not even attempted to deny her behavior), there is simply no excuse for what one online publication accurately called “psychological lynching” of a child.

It’s strange that an incident like this, which would have been enough to scar an adult, is not being taken seriously enough to be considered emotional abuse. This is a five-year-old child. How much more abusive can you get than to round up all his classmates and have them call him names like “annoying“ and “disgusting” before finally voting him out of the class? It really begins to make you worry about our threshold for child abuse tolerance. It seems we’re just not willing to take the victim’s side here.

It took doctors four days to figure out what was wrong with William Finely. The four-year-old began vomiting inexplicably, and three days later, was rushed to the hospital. Doctors were not able to diagnose his illness. When he re-entered the hospital after another bout of vomiting, doctors performed emergency surgery, where they found what was causing the vomiting - a pair of powerful earth magnets from the Magnetix range of toys stuck together on either side of his intestine. The damage was very obvious –a perforation where the two magnets had been stick together.

Williams was lucky – if he had been operated on even an hour later, he would have died. For the rest of his life, however, this four-year-old will have to live with the effects of a company’s negligence. He is at risk of gastrointestinal problems for the rest of his life, and will have to be put on a special diet throughout his days. Now seven years old, William’s life is expected to be punctuated with frequent spells of constipation, diarrhea and severe abdominal pain. It would be a health-impaired lifestyle, even for an adult to endure. For a child, it promises a bleak future marked by ill health and visits to the doctor.

Now, a lawsuit that his parents had filed against the company that was responsible for manufacturing the toy has been settled. The boy’s mother, Sara, will receive $20,000 for immediate assistance so she can get her life, which has essentially gone out of her financial control, back on track. In the weeks and months since William’s accident, he has been in need of constant medical attention. Sara has had to quit her job to stay home and look after him fulltime. With no way of supporting her family, she has had to move to her grandmother’s trailer, where the mother and son survive on fold-out beds in a single bedroom arrangement. There is no place in the trailer for William’s father, so he has been forced to move elsewhere, breaking the family further.

All of this could have been avoided if Rose Art Industries, the company that manufactured the toy, had been more diligent about the use of such powerful magnets in playthings that were meant for preschoolers. The packaging of the Magnetix toy mentioned choking hazards as one of the safety concerns for children, but said nothing about the possibility of the magnets, if ingested, sticking to each other and causing severe bodily harm. Even with reports of dangers involving the toys coming in from around the country, the company neglected to recall its toys, leading to more than 20 children being rushed to emergency rooms with perforated intestines.

With the settlement now, Rose Art Industries will have to pay $718,000 divided into three sums to be paid on William’s thirtieth, fortieth and fiftieth birthdays. The initial $20,000 settlement will be used to take care of his immediate needs, like a car to take him around for his medical visits, and to purchase the special diet that he will now have to follow.

If you have a child that has been injured by a dangerous toy, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

It would seem that there is hardly any product out there fit for children that’s untouched by lead. First, we had the lead toy crisis. Tainted candy and jewelry followed. Now, a Los Angeles firm, T-A Creations Inc., has been fined $10 million for selling more than 100,000 pieces of it toxic lead-tainted lunch bags. One of the purchasers? The California Department of Public Health, which loaded up on thousands of these bags to be distributed at heath fairs, which ironically enough promoted healthy and natural living with the slogan “Eat Fruits and Vegetables and be Active” on the bags.

The judgment was issued on Tuesday in the San Francisco County Superior Court, and was handed down for violating the state’s laws on toxic products.

The Center for Environmental Health, which has been campaigning against lead in products, and which notified the company back in 2006 that traces of lead had been found in its lunch bags, will receive $2.5 million. The remaining $7.5 million will go to special environmental research funds sponsored by the state.

T-A Creations has also been barred from selling products like lunch bags, coolers and beverage containers without displaying prominent notices and labels on the products that the exposure to lead and carcinogenic compounds could cause cancer and reproductive defects.

According to legal experts, the fine is huge, and probably the most severe penalty imposed after Proposition 65 was introduced. Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, calls for the posting of information on products about the dangers of toxic substances like lead and lead compounds on health.

When the lead products hysteria gripped the nation last year, the lunch bags were right up there making parents anxious along with toys, candy and jewelry. The scandal over the bags left California Department of Health officials red-faced. More than 56,000 bags had been procured by the department to use as educational tools, and they distributed them at schools, grocery stores and other spots. When reports of the lead traces were out, the bags were quickly recalled, and notices were posted asking people who had them to dispose of them. Then, the agency had declared that it would reexamine its own policies on promotional products.

There is enough to suggest that this lead-in-products saga is still ongoing. With the number of goods manufactured in faraway places like China where environmental and toxic safety standards are not imposed on the same level that they are here, we can expect there to be more such products, many of them related to children, that are on the market even as we discuss this lunch bag penalty. Lead is a particularly dangerous substance because it affects the tender nervous systems and brains of growing children. That we are constantly hearing about its presence in products used by little children should be a cause for concern.

If you have been injured by a dangerous product, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

When Mary Terry was moved from her home to a Florence hospital, the 62-year-old woman weighed less than 115 pounds, and her body was covered with bedsores. Hospital authorities later estimated she had not been fed in more than 30 days. The house she was living in was covered with human and rat feces, and reeked of urine and filth. Mary didn’t live long after being removed from her horrendous living conditions. She died in the hospital. At the time of her removal from her home, her son, Timothy Sims, and a nephew were caring for her. Both of them have been charged with elder abuse.

Now, a wrongful death lawsuit has been bought forth by Mary’s brother, Clarence Sims, against employees of the Department of Social Services. They claim that DSS workers who arrived at Mary’s home to provide care for her 82-year-old mother neglected to report the abuse and neglect that was taking place.

The DSS has been responsible for Mary’s care since 2001. Tim took over as his mother’s caregiver in 2005. The DSS failed to stop him, even after it was known that he had a history of alcoholism, battery and domestic violence.

The lawsuit names DSS caretaker Lisa Gibson and social worker Ada Antoine who were assigned to Mary’s case. They allege that the women, who visited the home at least 11 times in the 75 days before Mary was taken to the hospital, neglected to report that Mary was in a state of near death. Her son and nephew were effectively starving her. The lawsuit outlined a number of points that reveal the pitiful state of Mary Terry’s last hours. The stoves were not operational, and there was feces and filth all over the place. The DSS has stoutly denied any allegations of neglect.

Laws that relate to reporting when a case of abuse and neglect is taking place are there to provide extra protection for the vulnerable, like the elderly. When Mary Terry’s own son was failing in his duty to protect her, it fell upon the DSS to remain vigilant and look into any chances of possible elder abuse taking place under its own nose. How is it possible that the two caregivers could visit Terry’s home and care for her old mother, and never once notice Terry’s state? If the abuse had been reported on the first visit to the house, there are chances that Terry could have been removed from that offensive house, and put in a hospital as quickly as possible. She could have made a full recovery. When she was a bought to hospital, she was half dead.

The DSS has much to answer for, and frankly, we don’t think the answers are going to hold much of water.

If you have a loved one who has been the victim of nursing home abuse, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Authorities in Hesperia are looking for a 2002-2003 gold or tan colored Ford Taurus with tinted windows. The vehicle is suspected in the hit and run accident that has put a 19-year-old boy in the hospital.

According to reports, Sam Gordon was walking home with 2 of his friends eastbound on Walnut Street, when they were hit from behind by a Taurus. Sam’s friends suffered minor injuries and received local treatment. Sam suffered a spinal injury, and has been in intensive care for the past two months. The 19-year-old, his family says, had hopes of becoming a neurosurgeon and loved to race cars. For now, all those ambitions and dreams have been put on hold. The most important thing for him is to regain control of his body and his life, one day at a time.

Sam’s recovery has been painstaking, and there are still miles to go. He was only recently taken off the ventilator. The road to recovery has been hard, and he has had to battle a bout of pneumonia and nasty infections. But his family says his hopes are high, and they are focusing on the smaller things – trying to get control of one simple activity at a time. He has some movement in his left hand, and his right hand is getting stronger. He still has his dreams intact, his family says. Becoming a neurosurgeon is still on the horizon.

While Sam is battling to get his life back together again, the hit and run driver is out on the streets, free to cause more such disasters to unsuspecting pedestrians. According to Sam’s friends, who were also involved in the accident, the driver didn’t stop at the scene of the accident and just took off.

Sam’s parents are firm when they say that they are too focused on their son’s health to think of revenge in any way, but they definitely want the driver to be bought to justice. Something like this shouldn’t have to happen to someone else they say, and they are right. We hope that the driver of the Ford will be found as fast as possible. This person needs to be held accountable for his actions. Sam’s hospital bills are no doubt extensive, and it’s just a matter of time before his family begins to feel the pinch of the price of rigorous physical therapy and other specialized therapy.

If you have been injured in a pedestrian accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

A Seaside man was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on Highway 156 in Santa Clara County. This accident is just one more example of the way in which drunk drivers can cause accidents. The kind of reasoning impairment and poor reflexes that alcohol can cause is enough to cause an accident even if you were not speeding or driving recklessly.

In this case, 48-year-old Renard Phillips was driving his 1995 Cadillac sedan eastbound on the highway. The car suddenly veered off the road and hit a guardrail. After this, it came back onto the roadway into the westbound lane, where the drunk driver, 39-year-old Los Banos resident Rosendo Ramirez, was driving his big rig truck. He was westbound, and driving a 1998 Peterbilt truck owned by True Leaf Farms in Salinas. Ramirez was intoxicated, and could not respond fast enough to avoid the sedan. His truck crashed into the sedan, and Phillips was killed at the scene. He was found trapped in the vehicle when emergency workers arrived and had no pulse.

After hitting Phillips, Ramirez’ truck crashed into concrete railway before coming to stop, he did not sustained injuries in the accident. He was given a sobriety test, and when his blood alcohol limit was found to be higher than the legal limit of 0.08 percent, he was arrested on charges of drunk driving.

Details from the California Highway Patrol investigation report are not known at this point, but whatever the blood alcohol content of Ramirez, it’s confirmed that he was in a state of intoxication above the legal limit. He might not have been driving above the speed limit; he might have been only minutely above the blood alcohol limit. Regardless of these things, it’s definitely a possibility that had he been in full control of his faculties and completely sober he would have been able to avoid the sedan.

When you’re in charge of a monster big rig on a busy road, it’s not just necessary, but life and death essential that you be fully aware and completely sober. A truck involved in an accident almost always causes higher rates of injuries and fatalities than a smaller passenger car. The nature of the injuries sustained in a truck accident are also severe.

For these reasons, Ramirez has much to answer for. There is no excuse for getting into a truck and driving when you are not completely and 100 percent sober. The potential to cause harm and injury to others is too great.

If you or a loved one have been the victim of a drunk driving accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The collapse of the Yo-Yo ride at the Calaveras County Fair and Jumping Frog Jubilee has been blamed on “mechanical failures.” Two girls still remain hospitalized from injuries after the accident. At least 23 people were injured on Friday at the carnival in Angel Camp, California.

Those who were on the ride had nothing to suspect when the Yo-Yo, a swing-like ride that has arms that swing out as they spin around an axis, was whirling them around. At some point, the arms seem to have crashed down, taking the riders with them. The aftermath of the crash resembled a disaster zone, survivors say, with tangled cables everywhere and children on the ground with blood gushing from their legs.

At least one person who was on the ride the previous day said that he mentioned to the operator that the ride felt shaky. He says he told the operator that the ride seemed to be going faster and higher. Now it appears that this was just a sign of the impending disaster. Warning signs were very clearly evident, and the people involved, it appears, chose to ignore them.

The accident has brought back memories of another horrific amusement park ride accident last year, when 14-year-old Kaitlin Lassiter had her legs severed when cables from the Superman Tower of Power at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom detached themselves and wrapped around her ankles. One of her legs has been amputated and her family has since sued Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. Her parents have turned ardent campaigners to bring about better safety inspections standards in the amusement park industry. A loophole in the law allows no federal oversight over amusement parks, and all inspection has to be conducted by state inspectors.

There seems to be a growing number of these “accidents” taking place at amusement parks, where people don’t go expecting to be hurt. That more people were not hurt or even killed at the Calaveras County fair disaster is simply a matter of good fortune. With the number of children on that ride, there could have been more deadly injuries. The Carnival, surprisingly enough, is back in operation after a day of quiet.

It seems there is a level of carelessness when it comes to amusement park rides. The International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions has released a statement after this accident saying its record is “outstanding.” With a recent accident that severed a young girl’s legs and now this new accident, which could have had potentially disastrous consequences for the riders, it would seem that “outstanding” is a bit optimistic. The CPSC reports that nearly 37,000 people were rushed to emergency rooms in 2006 with amusement park ride related injuries. That’s a huge number for an industry that prides itself on its safety records. We hope careful attention is paid to these troubling accidents before we see a major and unnecessary disaster.

There was nothing on the eve of July 10, 2006 that could have prepared the Higdon family for what was to come the next day. Patrick and Margaret Higdon, along with their twin boys, James and Patrick, and daughter Megan, Margaret’s siblings and her parents, were holidaying at a vacation rental at Cedar Grove Resort about 200 miles north of Milwaukee. They had gone to bed after the usual vacation day - lazing around, eating at the restaurant nearby and playing cards.

At 2 in the morning, the family was roused by the sound of explosions. Within no time, the rental was on fire. Margaret’s parents and the three kids managed to escape, but Patrick and Margaret remained trapped. 12-year-old Megan watched as the building that had her parents inside burned faster and faster. All the time, she could hear her mother’s voice from inside the cabin, calling for help.

Help came too late for Patrick and Margaret. They didn’t make it through the fire. The kids were not spared injuries either. Megan suffered a shattered spleen and burns to her chest and lips. Patrick, then 14, suffered facial fractures. There were also first and second degree burns on his body. He has a loss of sensation in his cheek, and is not able to open his mouth fully. James was the hero of the hour. He raced back into the burning building to pull his grandfather out of the inferno. Although he suffered fewer physical injuries, psychologists have affirmed that he is the one in the most danger of having psychological problems from this tragedy.

After the fire, it was found that an electrical contractor company installing electrical line, Arby Construction Company, had ruptured a propane gas line that ran under the ground. When the family filed a lawsuit, they mentioned Cedar Grove Resort, Arby Construction Company, some construction companies and their insurance companies.

Now, court documents reveal that the settlement awarded to the children has been fixed at $21 million. These will take into account hospitalization expenses and lawyer’s fees, and will be used to set up trust funds for each of the three children. Currently Megan, Patrick and James live with their grandparents.

These are children who have been left permanently scarred by the events of that horrible night. To have a vacation turn into an inferno in a matter of minutes, and to have to watch helplessly as your parents perish, must have been painful beyond description. The children have a struggle ahead of them without their parents in their lives, and deserve the compensation they will now receive.

If you have been injured in an explosion, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.