Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

Toyota is recalling 1.3 million motor vehicles over concerns that a foam pad located close to the seat belt could catch fire during an auto crash. Included in the automaker’s recall are 134,000 Yaris subcompacts (2006 and 2007 models) that were sold in the United States.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working with Toyota to recall the cars, which come with front passenger seat belt and driver seat belt pretensioners that retract the belts so that the occupants' forward momentum is absorbed during a serious frontal impact.

Toyota is concerned that during serious, frontal crashes, the mechanism that is supposed to tighten the seat belt could release a gas that might cause a foam pad used for insulating sound to catch fire. So far, there are no reports of any incidents stemming from the defect in the United States.

Auto defects or defective auto parts can lead to serious injuries and deaths. Auto manufacturers are supposed to make sure their vehicles are safe for use. While defects can occur during the production or shipping of a motor vehicle, there are auto parts that are defective because there are flaws in their design.

If you or someone you love was injured in a Massachusetts motor vehicle accident because the vehicle you were riding in was defective or malfunctioned, you may have grounds for an automobile products liability lawsuit.

Common auto defects that have resulted in personal injury lawsuits:

• Defective seat belts
• Rollover accidents
• Defective air bags
• Faulty engines
• Defective tires
• Brake defects

Toyota Announces Safety Recall on Select Vehicles, PR Newswire, January 28, 2009

Global Recall by Toyota; Affects 1.35 Million Cars, Huliq.com, January 28, 2009

Related Web Resources:
NHTSA

Toyota

Continue reading "Toyota Issues International Recall of 1.3 Million Motor Vehicles" »

New information in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine offers convincing evidence that the combined use of seat belts and air bags is the best protection that auto accident victims can have from sustaining spine fractures. The findings are based on an examination of over 20,000 motor vehicle crash victims who were treated in Wisconsin hospitals between 1994 and 2002.

According to the study:
• The number one cause of spinal cord injuries is motor vehicle accidents.
• Becoming involved in an auto crash in a vehicle equipped with air bags and while using a seat belt lowered the chances of an accident victim sustaining a spine fracture.
• Just 14% of the drivers and front seat passengers who were victims of motor vehicle crashes had the protection of both a seat belt and an air bag.
• 38% of the accident victims were not using seat belts.
• Out of the 2,530 victims with spine fractures who were part of the study, 64 of them died in hospitals.
• Kinds of spine fractures: 1,067 of them were cervical fractures, 1,034 were lumbosacral fractures, and 565 were thoracic fractures.
• Auto accident victims that were using an air bag and not a seat belt had a greater chance of sustaining a severe thoracic spine fracture.

Evidence from the study was based on information about air bag and seat belt usage combined with spine fracture incidences. Some 20,276 auto accident victims were part of the study. All of the individuals had be either front seat passengers or drivers, 16 years of age or older. They also had to not have been thrown from the vehicle during the crash, and complete ICD-9CM data had to be provided.

One of the authors of the study, Marjorie C. Wang, MD, MPH from the Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, says that federal and state governments should dedicate more resources toward making sure that motor vehicle occupants use air bags and seat belts together.

Spinal Fractures
A spinal fracture is when at least one vertebrae in the back or neck breaks. While many spine fracture cases are not serious enough to warrant surgery, more serious spinal fractures can result in spinal cord injuries, paralysis, severe pain, and death. Failing to treat existing fractures can lead to progressed deformity and the ability to live a healthy, normal life.

Research: Air Bags/Seat Belts Important in Preventing Spine Fractures, Huliq News, January 26, 2009

Spinal Fractures, Spine Universe.com

Related Web Resources:

Journal of Neurology: Spine

Spinal Cord Injuries, Medline Plus

Continue reading "Seat Belts and Air Bags Together Are Key to Preventing Spine Fractures During Motor Vehicle Accidents" »

In Salem Superior Court, a jury awarded the family of Priscilla Jardine $2 million for her wrongful death. Jardine died on February 26, 2004 soon after giving birth to a baby girl during an emergency cesarean section. The jury issued its Massachusetts wrongful death verdict after finding that Jardine’s obstetrician, Dr. Debra Gail Knee, acted negligently when she recommended that the 32-year-old then pregnant mother take the drug labetalol.

As a result of taking the drug, Jardine’s blood pressure fell to dangerous levels and decreased her unborn baby’s fetal heart rate so that it became undetectable. Soon after delivering her daughter, Jardine went to cardiac arrest and died. Knee’s lawyer says that his client did not issue the directive for Jardine to take the medication and that another doctor who made the call has acknowledged that it was exclusively on his order.

According to the wrongful death lawsuit, hospital staffers told Jardine’s family that labetalol was “safe.” Information from the drug’s manufacturer, however, warns that patients suffering from congestive heart failure should not take the medication. A nurse at Caritas Family Hospital followed orders and administered labetalol to Jardine even though the pregnant woman was exhibiting symptoms that her heart was failing.

Medication Errors
It is responsibility of each physician to make sure that they are prescribing the proper drug to a patient and that the drug does not cause any adverse or dangerous side effects. Recommending the wrong drug to a patient can be very dangerous and can lead to serious injuries, health complications, and even death. It can also be grounds for Massachusetts medical malpractice lawsuit.

Labetalol
Labetalol is used on patients with high blood pressure. The drug relaxes the arterial muscles and helps lower one's blood pressure. According to Medicine.net, it is unclear whether the drug is safe for use during pregnancy.

Jury awards $2M in wrongful death suit to family of Methuen woman, Eagle Tribune, January 23, 2009

Jury Awards Family $2M After Childbirth Death, The Boston Channel, January 23, 2009

Related Web Resources:

Labetalol, Medicine.net

Medication Errors Injure 1.5 Million People and Cost Billions of Dollars Annually, The National Academies

In Massachusetts, an investigation is taking place into a bus crash that occured last Sunday night in Grafton. Five people were injured and taken to UMass Medical Center in Worcester.

The bus, carrying 30 passengers, was headed to the Mohegan Sun casino when its driver crashed through a Massachusetts Turnpike guardrail and stopped in the woods. The reason for why the bus went off the road is unclear. Bus driver Jian Kang Chen works for Sunshine Travel Services. The Massachusetts bus company has offices in Quincy and Boston.

Sunday was a tough time in general for Massachusetts drivers to be on the road. Due to heavy snow, a winter advisory was issued that lowered the speed limit on Massachusetts highways to 40 mph. Throughout the state, snowfall was between 4 and 6 inches.

Bus Accidents
Bus accidents can result in serious injuries for passengers, who usually are not wearing seatbelts, as well as any other motorists and pedestrians involved in the collision.

Many buses are common carriers. This means that bus drivers must exercise even greater caution than other motorists to make sure that their passengers and other people on the roads are safe.

If you are injured in a Massachusetts bus accident, there are steps that an experienced Boston personal injury lawyer can take to successfully pursue financial recovery on your behalf if another party was negligent. Not only can a negligent bus driver or bus operator be held financially responsible for your personal injury or your loved one's wrongful death, but the manufacturer of a defective bus or another driver may also be liable.

Bus Accident Facts:
• Some 360 million people ride buses every year.
• There are at least 30,000 commercial buses that travel on US roads.

Bus crashes in Grafton, Boston.com, January 19, 2009

Inquiry launched into Pike bus crash, Boston.com, January 20, 2009

Related Web Resource:
Sunshine Travel Services

Continue reading "Investigators Probe Cause of Massachusetts Bus Accident that Injured 5 People" »

Researchers from Harvard say that operating room deaths and medical complications are decreased by 1/3rd whenever nurses and doctors follow a 19-step checklist before, during, and after the surgical procedure. Their findings come from a international study involving eight hospitals. All of the hospitals found that medical complications went down from 11% to 7% with the checklist, while patient deaths went down from 1.5% to 0.8%.

According to Brigham and Women’s Hospital surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande, who is also the Harvard School of Public Health paper’s senior author, using a surgical checklist doesn’t cause unnecessary delays. Instead, it can decrease medical mistakes.

The study can be found on the New England Journal of Medicine’s Web site. A number of hospitals have already adopted the 19-step checklist because of the study’s findings. The checklist is influenced by the World Health Organization’s guidelines and takes just a couple of minutes to fill out. The list includes verbal steps for staff to follow before administering anesthesia to a patient, performing an incision, and moving the patient out of the operating room.

Steps include:

• Confirming that an anesthesia safety check was conducted
• Making sure surgical team members have met each other
• Talking about any concerns anyone might have about the procedure or the patient
• Confirming that no surgical tools were left inside the patient

The Massachusetts Hospital Association and the Institute of Healthcare Improvement in Cambridge are calling on Massachusetts hospitals to use this surgical checklist.

Surgical Malpractice
Surgical malpractice is grounds for a Massachusetts medical malpractice claim or wrongful death lawsuit. Surgeons, nurses, and other surgical staff in the operating room are supposed to make sure that no mistakes that can cause injury or death are made before, during, or after an operation.

Safety list cuts surgery deaths, Boston.com, January 15, 2009

Surgical Safety Checklist (PDF)

Related Web Resources:

New England Journal of Medicine

Massachusetts Hospital Association

Continue reading "Medical Complications and Operating Room Deaths are Reduced When Safety Checklist is Followed, Says Harvard Study" »

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Stork Craft Manufacturing are announcing the recall of some 535,000 Stork Craft Baby Cribs. They are telling consumers to stop using the cribs right away. Stork Craft will provide crib owners with a free replacement kit.

The recall is being issued because the metal support brackets that are designed to support the crib’s mattress board and mattress could crack and break, causing the mattress to collapse and a hazardous gap to appear between the crib rails and the mattress.

The CPSC says that so far there have been 10 reported incidents in which at least one support bracket broke. In one case, a toddler sustained bruises to his forehead. In another incident, a child got trapped in the gap but, fortunately, did not get hurt. The Stork Craft Baby Cribs were made and sold between May 2000 and January 2009 at online and major retailers, including Walmart and Kmart.

This is the second crib recall of 2009. On January 6, the CPSC announced that Jardine Enterprises was recalling about 56,450 Jardine Cribs because the wood slats could break, creating a gap that could lead to strangulation and entrapment injuries, including death. The CPSC has received at least 19 reports involving incidents where Jardine crib slats broke. There have been no reports of injuries.

Defective Cribs
Crib manufacturers can be held liable for products liability or wrongful death if a crib the company designed and distributed has defects that contributed to an infant or toddler sustaining injuries or dying.

Examples of crib defects include:
• Faulty mattress design
• Crib slats that are too widely spaced
• Poorly designed crib corners

Crib accidents can lead to serious injuries include fall accidents, entrapment accidents, and strangulation accidents.

Stork Craft Recalls More Than 500,000 Cribs; Mattress Support Bracket Failures Create Risk of Entrapment and Suffocation, CPSC.gov, January 13, 2009

More than 500,000 cribs recalled, CNN Money, January 13, 2009

Jardine Expands Recall of Cribs Sold by Babies“R”Us; Cribs Pose Entrapment and Strangulation Hazards, CPSC.gov, January 6, 2009

Related Web Resource:
Crib Safety Tips, CPSC

Continue reading "Stork Craft and CPSC announce product recall of over 500,000 cribs due to suffocation and entrapment hazards" »

Investigators looking into the deadly accident involving a Boston Fire Department ladder truck driving through an intersection and ramming into a high-rise apartment building are examining the vehicle’s brakes. The focus on catastrophic brake failure as a possible cause for the fatal crash comes after reports from survivors that the fire truck’s driver frantically pumped on the brakes in an effort to stop Ladder 26 from flying down Parker Hill Avenue and crashing into the building that housed a computer learning center.

Four children that were working in the center at the time of the Boston truck accident suffered minor injuries and were taken to local hospitals. Fire Lieutenant Kevin M Kelley, who was riding in the fire truck’s front passenger seat, died immediately on impact. Two other firefighters in the backseat of the truck sustained minor injuries. Fire truck driver Robert Bernard O’Neill was released from Brigham & Women's Hospital on Saturday.

Boston Fire Commissioner Roderick Fraser has ordered an outside inspection of the brake systems on 44 Boston fire trucks, which were made by the same manufacturer. While officials are careful to caution that nothing has been found yet to indicate that brake failure was the cause of the crash, the fire truck’s maintenance records indicate that the vehicle has had brake problems in the past.

In 2006, the truck crashed into another building. Fortunately, no one was injured. Also, following a routine inspection in October, a faulty brake hose was replaced.

Video footage from security cameras at different apartment buildings on Parker Hill Avenue showed that the truck driver could have slowed the truck down by purposely driving into other motor vehicles that were parked on the street. However, this could have caused injuries to others.

Fire union officials have complained in the past about poor fire equipment maintenance, including inadequate truck maintenance. The Fire Department board of inquiry is also expected to conduct its own probe into the fire truck accident.
Crash survivors fault the brakes, Boston.com, January 11, 2009

Boston fire truck smashes into building; 1 dead, Associated Post, January 10, 2009

Related Web Resources:

Fire Department - City of Boston

Labor and Workforce Development, Massachusetts.gov

Continue reading "Deadly Boston Fire Truck Accident May Have Been Caused By Brake Failure, Says Survivors" »

An Associated Press review of the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ranking system found that Massachusetts nursing homes located in the state’s more affluent areas tended to receive higher ratings for quality than their counterparts in poorer counties.The ranking system rates some 16,000 nursing homes in the United States for quality of care, staffing levels, and health inspection results.

A number of factors were examined when arriving at each home’s rating, including how many patients acquired bedsores during their first three months at a nursing home, the number of injuries sustained in fall accidents, and the number of hours of care each patient received on a daily basis. Nursing homes that provided the best level of care and services received a five star rating, while homes considered to provide well below average care received one star.

17% of the 433 Massachusetts nursing homes that were assessed received 5 stars, while 14% of the state’s nursing homes received 1 star. A closer examination of the data reveals that nursing homes located in poorer parts of the state tended to receive less stars:

• Almost 60% of Massachusetts nursing homes in Middlesex County, considered one of the state’s most affluent areas, received 5 star ratings.

• In Massachusetts's poorest area, Hampden County, almost 6 out of every 10 US nursing homes received 1 or 2 stars.

• Plymouth County, also a wealthy Massachusetts area, was number 3 among counties with the highest number of 4 or 5 star nursing homes.

• Among the exceptions was Suffolk County, which includes the city of Boston. Massachusetts’s third poorest county had the highest percentage of 5 star nursing homes and the lowest percentage of 1 star ones.

The Medicare and Medicaid ranking system is designed to give prospective residents and their families another way of assessing the quality of care provided at each home. While researching and visiting a nursing home are great ways to make sure that you are choosing to admit your loved one into a long-term care facility where they will receive the best care possible, nursing home abuse and neglect incidents do occur.

Nursing home quality varies by region in Mass., MSNBC.com, January 1, 2009

Nursing Home Compare, Medicare.gov

Related Web Resources:
Nursing Homes, Mass.gov

Nursing Homes in Massachusetts

Continue reading "More Higher Quality Massachusetts Nursing Homes Are Located in More Affluent Areas, Says the Associated Press" »

In Massachusetts, the mother of 16-year-old Anthony McGrath is suing the town of Plymouth, former police chief Robert Pomeroy, and officers Edwin Almeida and Richard Tavares for his wrongful death. McGrath was shot by Almeida and Tavares following a high-speed motor vehicle pursuit on January 10, 2006. The officers were following McGrath because he was a suspect in a liquor store break-in. They fired 11 shots, and the teenager was struck by two of them.

Now, Denise McGrath is seeking unspecified monetary damages for police brutality. Her complaint cites unreasonable and deadly force without legal cause and contends that the two cops were not in any danger when they started shooting at McGrath.

Although Almeida and Tavares were responding to a possible break-in, one did not actually take place. McGrath, however, did not stop his vehicle when he saw that police were pursuing him, even after he drove into a wall.

Denise alleges that one of the fatal bullets struck McGrath in the back after his vehicle had driven past the police officers. By this time, they had left their police cars and were pursuing him on foot. She says her son was afraid of the police officers and was trying to return to his house, which was nearby. Denise says that Tavares and Almeida knew that the teenager was unarmed when they started firing at him.

She is seeking punitive and compensatory damages for McGrath’s wrongful death, including recovery for loss of future wages, protection, service, assistance, care, comfort, companionship, counsel, guidance, society, and advice. Her Massachusetts wrongful death lawsuit also contends that Pomeroy, who is now retired, did not train police officers in how to properly conduct police pursuits, protect people’s civil rights, apprehend suspects, fire weapons, and use deadly force.

An investigation into the incident cleared both Tavares and Almeida of any wrongdoing.

Police Brutality
Excessive use of force by any Massachusetts police officer is a violation of a person’s civil rights and can be grounds for a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit.

Mom of teen shot by Plymouth police sues, Boston Herald, January 7, 2009

Teen’s mother sues police, town for son’s death, WickedLocal.com, January 6, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Police brutality cases on rise since 9/11, USA Today, December 18, 2007

Top 5 Police Brutality Videos, The Huffington Post, January 8, 2009