Posted on April 12,2021 in Construction Accidents

Concrete workers face a variety of hazards that can cause serious injuries, disabilities, or death. As a result, OSHA mandated a number of safety standards geared towards keeping workers safe. Despite these standards, however, employers often fail to take precautionary measures to protect their workers. Unsafe conditions in the concrete industry continue to cause approximately 28,000 serious injuries and illnesses and about 40 deaths each year. By recognizing workplace hazards and following a few safety tips, concrete workers can reduce their risk of getting seriously injured, becoming permanently disabled, or dying. 

Hazards Concrete Workers Face

Some of the most common hazards that cause serious injuries or death to concrete workers include:

• Falls from cranes or other elevated workspaces
• Getting crushed or pinned by heavy slabs of concrete when partially constructed foundations collapse

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Car Accident

Forward-Collision Warning, Blind-Spot Monitoring, Automatic Emergency Braking, and other advanced safety systems are keeping drivers safe. These systems use radar, cameras, and other sensors to keep an eye on what’s happening on the roads around them. Using onboard computers, they process the collected information and respond when a crash appears imminent.

Forward-Collision Warning (FCW)

This safety feature uses cameras, radar, or lasers to watch the road ahead and monitor relative speed and distances between vehicles. It provides a visual, audible, and/or tactile warning of an impending collision with a pedestrian, car, or another object. These systems are sometimes accompanied by auto-braking features that will automatically hit the brakes if the driver fails to heed the warning.

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB)

Using radar and forward-facing cameras, the AEB system detects potential collisions and warns the driver of an impending forward crash with another car, object, or pedestrian. If the driver fails to react in time, the system automatically applies the brakes to prevent or reduce the severity of a crash.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice cases usually involve complex legal terminology. To navigate the deep waters of medical malpractice claims, it’s important for a medical negligence victim to understand the legal terms and how they may apply to his or her case.

Common Medical Malpractice Terms to Know

Below are some common terms in medical malpractice cases.

Affidavit: A sworn statement that assures the merit of facts written down and confirmed by oath.

Allegation: A statement made against the defendant and dictating what the claimant intends to prove.

Arbitration: A process of coming up with a resolution without involving the court system.

Assumption of Risk: This is a defendant’s allegation that the plaintiff was aware of the danger of the actions taken but willingly chose to take the risk.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Car Accident

Bicycle accidents can result from one primary factor or a combination of factors that are often motorist-related. Whether people ride a bike for their daily commute, exercise, or fun, they face risks every time they hit the road. In 2019, 864 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes. Hospital admissions due to bicycle accidents have increased by 120% over the last 15 years. 

The most common causes of bicycle accidents are:

Distracted Driving

Distracted drivers pose the greatest danger to bicyclists. When drivers are talking on the phone, texting, taking selfies, or conducting video chats, they are significantly more likely to cause dangerous collisions. Drivers are 23 times more likely to crash when texting and 3 times more likely to be involved in an accident when making a phone call.

Failure to Yield

Bicycles should be treated like other vehicles on the road. Unfortunately, motorists often overlook bicyclists when checking for oncoming traffic. Drivers failing to yield at intersections, in street lanes, or stop signs poses severe risks for bicycle riders. Additionally, drivers often hit cyclists when they don’t pay attention to their blind spots while turning or changing lanes.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Car Accident

A properly written witness statement could play a pivotal role in helping car accident victims to recover damages. An eyewitness may have knowledge about the accident that is not available in any other pieces of evidence. A witness statement puts observations in writing. A successful witness statement should include the witness’s contact information, details of the accident, information about injuries and property damage, and a signature. 

Witness’s Name and Contact Information

A witness statement should include the full legal name of the person making the statement. It should also contain important contact information including a phone number, home address, and email.

Including the Who, When, What, and Where of the Car Accident

The witness statement should address the who, when, what, and where of the car accident. It should list the names of all involved parties, details about the vehicles involved in the crash, the date and time the crash took place, and where the accident took place. The witness should be as specific as possible about what he or she saw and heard.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Uncategorized

Overworked doctors are twice as likely to make medical mistakes that injure or kill their patients. With the rising demand for their services, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals are often required to work long hours, juggle multiple tasks at a time, and see many different patients. Doctors who are overwhelmed by their workload are likely to take shortcuts or miss important details, which could lead to medical errors and negligence.

Long Hours and Burnout Create Dangerous Situations

Over-scheduling, near impossible workloads, and medical staff shortages can easily lead to doctor burnout and disastrous errors. For instance, errors are bound to occur when doctors are expected to work for more than 20 hours or when surgeons are expected to perform delicate procedures after excessively long shifts.

Burnout doctors are twice as likely to make diagnostic errors, use poor judgment, and make technical mistakes during medical procedures. Injuries and death can occur as a result of hospital-acquired infections, delayed treatment, improper anesthetic administration, missed or delayed diagnosis, medication overdose or underdose, surgical mistakes, inadequate monitoring after a procedure, failure to take proper precautions, and failure to act on tests results. The highest percentage of errors caused by physician burnout occurs among surgeons, radiologists, emergency room doctors, family doctors, neurologists, and urologists.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Car Accident

Whether traveling or hosting a huge gathering at home, Thanksgiving should be celebrated with safety in mind. The Thanksgiving holiday means family, friends, food, and fun. However, winter weather, busy traffic, alcohol consumption, and kitchen chaos can result in accidents that dampen the celebrations. These accidents can be avoided with just a bit of extra caution. Here are some tips to make the holiday safer and ensure everyone has a great time.

Driving Safety

The risk of auto accidents increases with millions of people crowding the highways and byways during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. Those who’ll be driving should have their vehicles inspected, serviced, and cleaned before the trip. They should also remember to drive defensively, be aware of the weather and road conditions, observe the speed limits, allow for more time to reach their destination, and avoid distracted, drowsy, or impaired driving.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Wrongful Death

In Southfield, Michigan, a woman was wrongfully declared dead, eventually leading to her death and the family’s subsequent lawsuit against the city and the responders at the scene. 

Wrongfully Declared Dead Woman Discovered Alive at Funeral Home

20-year-old Timesha Beauchamp passed away in October following severe brain damage, which allegedly resulted from first responders wrongfully declaring her dead after finding her unresponsive at home in August. Beauchamp had cerebral palsy.

Beauchamp’s family discovered her unconscious in their home and called emergency services. A team of four first responders attempted to revive Beauchamp with CPR before ceasing and declaring her dead at the scene.

According to the lawsuit, Beauchamp’s family requested the responders to return to the scene after declaring her dead. Using a monitor, it was apparently clear that electrical activity indicated that Timesha was still alive. As a result of her wrongfully declared death, the family claims that she suffered hypoxic brain damage, pain and suffering, and acute hypoxemic respiratory failure resulting from pulmonary arrest.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Nursing Home Abuse

The U.S. is experiencing another surge of COVID-19 cases and fatalities in nursing homes. During the early months of the pandemic, nursing homes quickly became ground zero for coronavirus outbreaks across the country. While the cases subdued somewhat in the fall, the facilities are now seeing their most intense surge in coronavirus cases. As new cases break record after record, infections at those facilities hit a new high in late November. The situation in nursing homes is dire because they house the highest at-risk senior population and patients with multiple underlying health issues.

Between late May and late November, the number of COVID-19 cases among nursing home residents and employees quadrupled. More than 82,000 nursing home residents and employees have died from the virus since the pandemic began.  Despite making up 5.8% of all U.S. COVID cases, 40% of recorded deaths have occurred in nursing homes.

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 Posted on April 12,2021 in Product Liability

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall for approximately 16,000 baby strollers due to entrapment, strangulation, and fall risks. Manufactured by Costway of Fontana, California, the strollers were sold on Amazon and the company’s site from May 2016 to December 2019. The Recall was issued on June 25, 2020, after CPSC found that 3 of the models had violated federal requirements for strollers and carriages.

Serious Risks Posed to Young Children

With the defective Costway strollers, a child’s body can pass through an opening between the seat bottom and the activity tray, or between the restraint and the seat bottom, posing the risk of entrapment or strangulation. Additionally, the location of the crotch restraint creates an opening that poses a fall hazard to children.

The recalled stroller models are:

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