Posts tagged with "subway accident"

Flesh-Eating Disease Leads to $7.8 Million Verdict Against Hospital

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Parents of a 12-year-old boy who suffered brain damage from a flesh-eating bacteria won a $7.8 million jury award against a hospital.

Jonathan Reynolds was taken to Dyersburg Regional Medical Center in 2004 after he cut his knee when he fell on an exposed nail head while playing laser tag at an amusement park. Doctors discharged the boy the same day, but two days later he returned complaining of excruciating pain, redness, and swelling moving up his leg.

It wasn’t until three days later that a new doctor realized Reynolds had a flesh-eating bacteria. By that time, according to his parents’ lawsuit, it was too late. Most of the skin from his knee to his groin had decomposed and required extensive skin grafts. He also fell into a coma and suffered from seizures that caused permanent brain damage.

According to the family’s lawsuit, the doctors failed to treat the cut properly because they didn’t give the boy antibiotics, and then failed to diagnose the flesh-eating bacteria.

This was the second time the case went to trial. The first trial ended in a mistrial in 2007. This time, although the jury issued its award, the doctors settled before trial, and the hospital settled in the middle of the trial.

The jury finished its work and decided that the family should receive $7.8 million, and found the owner of the amusement park, which is no longer in business, 13 percent responsible for the injury. While the jury would have put 20 percent of the blame on each of the two doctors who treated Reynolds and made the hospital liable for 47 percent, the actual amounts agreed upon in the settlement are confidential.

By: Sylvia Hsieh

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At Maya Murphy, P.C., our experienced team of personal injury attorneys is dedicated to achieving the best results for individuals and their families and loved ones whose daily lives have been disrupted by injury.  Our personal injury attorneys assist clients in New York, Bridgeport, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, Westport, and throughout Fairfield County. If you have any questions relating to a personal injury claim or would like to schedule a free consultation, please contact our Westport office by phone at (203) 221-3100 or via e-mail at JMaya@Mayalaw.com.

Obese Patient Falls from Surgical Table, Costs Hospital $225,000

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The family of a 61-year-old man who died after rolling off a hospital table has been awarded $225,000 by the Ramsey County District Court after a jury found the hospital negligent. The incident occurred on March 8, 2010, when St. Paul, Minn. resident Max DeVries was scheduled for a routine surgical procedure at HealthEast St. Joseph’s Hospital. According to the complaint, DeVries was sedated and not properly restrained on the surgical table, resulting in the fatal spill.

Given that DeVries weighed 330 pounds and stood 5 feet 5 inches, his size and the narrowness of the surgical table contributed to the fall, according to the family’s attorney. The case highlights the need for medical facilities and medical equipment manufacturers to respond to the needs of larger patients with equipment that can safely accommodate them.

  • Jury finds hospital negligent in the death of a patient after fall
  • Court puts the burden on the hospital to dispute negligence
  • Medical facilities must adapt to accommodate larger patients
Res Ipsa Loquitor

Unlike most cases of medical malpractice where the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to show that the defendant breached its duty of care, the DeVries case was different. The lawsuit met the elements of a legal doctrine known as res ipsa loquitor, which means that the defense had the burden to prove they were not negligent.

“You have a sedated person not capable of voluntary or involuntary movements,” Hajek says. “They fall off a procedure table, and the court says these things don’t happen in the absence of negligence. If the hospital could prove something was wrong with the table or that the strap failed, that would be one thing. But that wasn’t the argument of the defense.”

Instead, St. Joseph’s opted to argue that DeVries’ injuries from the fall did not contribute to his death. The hospital called three stroke experts to testify at the trial.

“None of them had any background in trauma care,” Hajek says. “There was a medical report issued that said Mr. DeVries had maceration, and the treating doctor [who testified] did not know what the term meant. So the jury rejected their experts’ testimony because none of them were trauma people.”

Despite the jury’s finding of negligence on the part of St. Joseph’s, the hospital continues to deny wrongdoing, much to the chagrin of DeVries’ surviving family members. In a statement, hospital CEO Sara Criger said: “The fact that there was a fall from a procedure table is a troubling event and we are sorry the fall occurred. However, despite the jury verdict, the medical evidence definitively proved there was no relationship between the fall and the patient’s later stroke or his death.”

A Growing Problem

The DeVries case highlights a trend that may result in an increased number of similar claims. The piece of equipment that DeVries was placed on was not equipped to properly support someone of his size. As the frequency of obesity rises, resulting in a myriad of health problems such as stroke, there will be an increase in obese patients. And this, says Hajek, is a problem that the health care community needs to address.

“This is now affecting all of the medical care,” Hajek says. “One of the risk factors with stroke is heavyweight, so it is not uncommon that you will be treating overweight people on a narrow space. If you are lying on a table that is wider than your girth, you can’t fall off.”

Hajek recommends that the medical community look into adopting a new regiment, one that will accommodate patients of all sizes for all types of procedures.

“It’s a systemic problem in nursing facilities, hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other medical facilities,” Hajek says. “Hospitals are starting to adapt, but it can be costly.”

By: Keith Ecker

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At Maya Murphy, P.C., our experienced team of personal injury attorneys is dedicated to achieving the best results for individuals and their families and loved ones whose daily lives have been disrupted by injury.  Our personal injury attorneys assist clients in New York, Bridgeport, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, Westport, and throughout Fairfield County. If you have any questions relating to a medical malpractice claim, hospital negligence, personal injury claim or would like to schedule a free consultation, please contact our Westport office by phone at (203) 221-3100 or via e-mail at JMaya@Mayalaw.com.

Suit Filed for Fashion Stylist Cut in Half by Dump Truck

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Nine years ago in Manhattan, fashion stylist Laurence Renard, 35, had a green light to cross First Avenue at 90th Street. It was 6 o’clock, and the sun had already set on a January day. As she crossed, a dump truck turning left to go north on the avenue hit her and dragged her down the street, ultimately severing her body in two and killing her. She was a block away from her home.

The dump truck was hauling excavated material from the Second Avenue Subway Project, the $17 billion construction of a new subway line.

Lawyers with New York firm Kreindler & Kreindler LLP filed a lawsuit last week on behalf of Renard’s husband, Brice Mastroluca, claiming negligence and recklessness. The main issue is why the dump truck was in the residential area and not on the city’s designated trucking routes.

The suit says that before the fatal accident, the defendants in the case were aware that dump trucks hauling debris from the work site were driving on routes other than designated thoroughfares.

Placing the Blame

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the City of New York both place responsibility on the contractors, who were named in the lawsuit, says Daniel O. Rose, who’s handling the case, along with two other partners. “I don’t know what the contractors are going to do. If they bring the MTA and the city into it, that would change things.”

The lawsuit names the contractors: S3 Tunnel Construction, Inc., Skanska USA Inc., Schiavone Construction Co. LLC, J. F. Shea Construction, Inc., Mendez Trucking Inc., Munoz Trucking Corp., and Rebco Contracting Corp., as well as the driver himself.

Diego Tapia-Ulloa, 24, was driving the truck. He had been arrested for driving with a suspended license and failing to yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. He eventually paid a $500 fine for the accident when it was discovered that his license suspension was due to a paperwork mix-up.

After the accident, he’d stopped the truck and called 911, identifying himself as the driver. He has since expressed remorse for the accident.

It might be hard for country folks to imagine anywhere in Manhattan being designated as “residential,” but the upper East side consists of blocks of narrow streets lined by brownstones and apartment high-rises. To keep these neighborhoods quiet, the city has designated certain streets as thru-ways. Heavy construction trucks were supposed to take 86th street to get across town.

Following Protocol

So the legal blame game begins. Was Tapia-Ulloa following unofficial protocol when he drove his truck down a residential one-way street that was off the designated truck routes?

“The question we looked for in our investigation was, where did the truck come from? It was clear it was from the Second Avenue Subway Project. The next question was why a 21,000-pound dump truck was barreling down First Avenue and a residential street. We learned there were instances of these dump trucks using residential streets even though they were told by the city and the MTA not to do it,” Rose says. “The question was, what was the motive for that? I think if you look at it just with common sense, why would you cut corners like that? The reason was to save time, and it does translate into money.”

“The issue is, the public was in danger, and ultimately Ms. Renard was killed because the contractors elevated their own interests above public safety,” he adds.

Is It Better to Have Loved and Lost?

Renard’s husband wants justice since he can’t have his wife back. “We’re seeking fair and reasonable compensation for Brice, but it’s a tragic loss of his wife,” Rose says. “They were a young, very much in love couple who were planning to have children. That’s the human part of it. It’s a human tragedy and a public safety issue.”

The attorney adds that “you don’t put a damage claim in the suit in New York, and we don’t have a particular amount in mind.”

Renard was hitting the pinnacle of her career when she was killed, getting hired by magazines and designers to style photoshoots and fashion shows. She’d worked with Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch, landing gigs with some of the fashion world’s respected photographers.

No matter what the lawsuit‘s outcome, it will never bring Renard back to life, or restore Tapia-Ulloa’s to normalcy. But the legal system can serve justice to those responsible for the tragedy.

“On a certain level it’s a very clear-cut case because we have a pedestrian who was crossing the street in New York City and a second later gruesomely, literally severed by a truck that ran her over,” Rose says. At least to some extent, he’s confident that some justice will be served.

By: Ada Kulesza

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At Maya Murphy, P.C., our experienced team of personal injury attorneys is dedicated to achieving the best results for individuals and their families and loved ones whose daily lives have been disrupted by injury.  Our personal injury attorneys assist clients in New York, Bridgeport, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Stamford, Westport, and throughout Fairfield County. If you have any questions relating to a personal injury claim or wrongful death claim or would like to schedule a free consultation, please contact our Westport office by phone at (203) 221-3100 or via e-mail at JMaya@Mayalaw.com.