The crash happened about a year ago while the man was riding in a bike lane. He was struck by an elderly driver and became trapped under the car. The driver stopped, but rather than call for help, she left her car running, got out and sat on a nearby wall. The man was declared brain dead and died several months later.
]]> His family is now pushing the Maryland General Assembly to pass legislation requiring better testing of driving skills. Functional Capacity Test screening is a series of tests by the Motor Vehicle Administration that measure field of vision, reaction time and other cognitive, visual and physical abilities of drivers. They're usually recommended for elderly drivers like the one who hit the young John Hopkins student on his bike, but anyone potentially suffering physical or mental decline may be asked to take them. The man's father said the tests are currently done through medical referrals or voluntarily, but he thinks it would be easy to make the tests a requirement for some drivers.The family is also fighting against a prospective change in driver's license renewal that would allow drivers to renew their license every eight years instead of five years. The 83-year-old driver who struck the young man agreed to permanently give up her license as part of a settlement with the family, but there are many other motorists still out on the road who are not fit to drive. Allowing them to drive for an extra three years without even the standard vision test could increase the risk of crashes.
The subject is a sensitive one for elderly drivers, who may not be ready or willing to give up the freedom a driver's license affords them. But identifying high-risk drivers through more rigorous and mandatory testing could go a long way toward preventing accidents like the one that killed the young student.
Source: Baltimore Brew, "Krasnopoler family pushes for competency tests for Maryland drivers," Fern Shen, Feb. 1, 2012
]]>Because fewer cosmetic procedures are covered by insurance these days, more patients are paying out of pocket. This trend has lured more doctors from their original practices into plastic surgery, which can be much more lucrative. But with so many doctors doing surgeries in which they're inexperienced, the risk of medical malpractice is higher.
]]> Certified plastic surgeons who started in the field say more patients are coming to them with requests to repair disfigurements from botched surgeries. These repairs don't come cheap because they aren't usually covered by insurance, either. But many newer plastic surgery practitioners say that traditional plastic surgeons are simply trying to corner the market by insisting they're the only ones who can perform the surgeries.The majority of licensed doctors get a specialty certification by one of 24 boards approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Board certification requires at least a three-year residency in a concentrated field, plus exams. But only a handful of states require doctors to be specific in their advertising about which specialty board certifications they have. In Maryland and other states, they only need to say that they're board-certified
There are no laws requiring doctors to practice only within the fields in which they were originally trained, and there's no way to tell how many doctors are practicing outside their specialty because they don't have to report they're doing so. They also don't have to report any plastic surgery complications, so you may never know if your plastic surgeon has a history of them. You can rely on reviews, if you can find them, but many victims of botched procedures are too embarrassed to report them. Perhaps the best you can do is check state medical board for any disciplinary actions and whether your prospective doctor has full operating privileges at a hospital.
Plastic surgery doesn't come cheap, so avoid having to shell out once for the original procedure and again for the repair. If you become disfigured in the process, a medical malpractice suit may be your next course of action.
Source: The New York Times, "Ear Doctors Performing Face-Lifts? It Happens," Kate Murphy, Jan. 30, 2012
]]>Truck accidents can be particularly damaging for a number of reasons. Cars and most other passenger vehicles are simply no match against an enormous tractor-trailer or tanker truck in a collision. It can also be much more difficult for large trucks to slow down and stop in traffic due to their sheer weight, which is why it's important for smaller-vehicle drivers to avoid cutting off trucks in traffic. They may not be able to avoid running into you if you pull in front of them and slow down abruptly.
]]> Unfortunately, accidents between large trucks and cars often result in serious injury or death. That was the case with a crash in Aberdeen, Maryland, early Thursday morning. At about 5 a.m., a tractor-trailer collided with a Chevrolet sedan, causing damage so severe that the sedan driver had to be extricated from his car by the Police Department. The truck driver didn't suffer any injuries, but the driver of the car was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital.As yet it's unknown what caused the crash. City police and the Maryland Transportation Authority Police Crash Team and Commercial Vehicle Inspection Team are investigating, according to a news release. If the driver of the truck is found at fault, the car driver's family may choose to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, especially if reckless driving, poor truck maintenance or improper loading of the truck was involved. While not all truck accidents are caused by driver error, those that are can result in monetary compensation for the injury or death of another motorist.
Source: ExploreHarford.com, "Man dies in crash at Route 22, Beards Hill Road in Aberdeen," Kayla Bawroski, Jan. 26, 2012
]]>Unfortunately, accidents do happen. And when they do, motorists are expected to take the same actions as they would in a crash with another car: They should pull over safely and check in with the other person involved, making sure to render aid or call for help if necessary.
]]> That didn't happen in a bicycle accident last summer in Glen Burnie, Maryland. A bicyclist was traveling on a city street when he was hit by a car from behind. Police said that rather than stop and check on the bike rider, who was seriously injured, the driver fled the scene. Witnesses gave officers a description of the driver and his car, which police found four days later in a store parking lot. They towed the car, got a warrant to search it, and found a ball cap and wire-rimmed glasses matching witness descriptions of the driver. Police also took DNA from the exterior of the car, which they learned in December matched the DNA of the bicycle rider. The driver was arrested this week and charged with leaving the scene of an accident causing serious injury, not returning to the scene of an accident and other charges.The bicycle rider could elect to hold the driver responsible for his injuries by filing a personal injury lawsuit against him, which may have caused the driver to leave the scene. But doing so didn't help the driver's case. If he's found guilty of the charges against him, it could strengthen the bike rider's case.
Bicycle riders have the same right to safety as motorists. Drivers who disregard bicyclists by following too closely, driving too fast or failing to stop and help after injuring them could be held liable in an accident such as this one.
Source: Officer.com, "Md. Police Use DNA To Link Driver With Hit-And-Run," E.B. Furgurson III, Jan. 25, 2012
]]>A new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine has found that headphone-wearing pedestrians are the biggest road hazard facing drivers today. Serious injuries to pedestrians wearing headphones have more than tripled in the past six years. And because their music drowns out most train and car horns, pedestrians have died in almost three quarters of 116 accident cases over seven years.
]]> Those who block out the world around them most often are teenage boys, according to the study, which was released this week. The study's lead author looked at 116 accidents from 2004 to 2011 in which pedestrians were hit by trains or vehicles. More than two-thirds of the victims were males under the age of 30. More than 50 percent of the accidents involved trains, and nearly one-third of the vehicles' drivers reported sounding a horn before the crash. Seventy percent of the cases were fatal.Since the dawn of radio, someone has been telling young people to turn down the music. But never before has the message been so dire. The study's lead author, who is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said he decided to study the accident rates of headphone-wearing pedestrians after a local teen was fatally struck by a train while crossing railroad tracks. His music apparently drowned out the sound of the train's horn. The author hopes the study will act as a warning for parents and their teens that failure to pay attention to their surroundings could land them in the emergency room -- or worse.
Source: Edmunds Inside Line, "Headphone-Using Pedestrians Are a Serious Road Danger, Study Says," Rene Wisely, Jan. 19, 2012
]]>You may have seen advertisements for Shape-Ups, which are special shoes made by Skechers that promise to tone muscles by changing the way you walk. The company's patented design features a rounded sole that forces you to use different muscles and firm them up. But some consumers are complaining that the shoe's design has caused serious injuries. One shoe buyer said she slightly twisted her ankle twice, then was hurt more severely, tearing tendons and ligaments in her left ankle.
]]> A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of 37 people so far, all of whom have cited serious injuries, including torn cartilage and hip fractures. One of the attorneys who filed the suit said some of the injuries were caused by a fall; others came from use over several months. He says the shoe company hasn't revealed any safety tests for the shoes, and that consumers are left to simply assume they're getting a safe product.Some industry experts think Skechers could soon come under the same fire that Reebok, another athletic shoe company, felt when it was fined $25 million by the Federal Trade Commission for claiming its toning shoes could strengthen muscles. Although several individual lawsuits have been filed against Skechers, the class-action lawsuit could bring more light to the injuries and prompt the FTC to warn the company to follow its own advice: Shape up and make changes.
Source: 10News.com, "Lawsuit Claims Dozens Injured By Company's Special Shoes," Jan. 13, 2012
]]>This week, a truck driver was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide. The charge stems from an accident in 2010 on the Ohio Turnpike that killed a Maryland woman and seriously injured her two children. The woman, a professor at Stevenson University, was returning to Cockeysville with her sons after visiting relatives. According to police, the truck driver fell asleep, causing his tractor-trailer to crash into the family's car and slam into five other vehicles just outside Cleveland.
]]> The woman's husband said he didn't take any pleasure in seeing the truck driver go to prison, but hoped the case would bring more attention to the issue of driver fatigue, especially as it applies to long-haul commercial truck drivers. These drivers face tremendous pressure to deliver their goods on time, leading many to drive for long stretches without adequate rest. Although laws exist to limit the amount of time truckers can drive before taking a mandatory break, these laws are not easily enforced.It's not clear how long the trucker had been driving when he fell asleep at the wheel. But even truckers who follow the law can face a civil suit for personal injury or wrongful death if they fall asleep and cause an accident that injures or kills someone. Truckers who are paid by the mile instead of the hour may see rest times as lost wages, but that lost time and money pales in comparison to that of a prison sentence or damages owed in a civil lawsuit after a serious accident.
Source: Baltimore Sun, "Driver whose truck hit, killed woman gets five years," Candus Thomson, Jan. 12, 2012
]]>As a condition of being paid under Medicare, hospitals are supposed to track medical errors and adverse patient reactions, analyze their cause, and improve care as a result. Most hospitals do have a system for employees to report these errors and their results to hospital managers. But according to the study, hospital staffs didn't report most of the events that harmed Medicare beneficiaries, including some that caused patient deaths.
]]> Just how many errors are we talking about? The report estimated that more than 130,000 Medicare patients experienced one or more adverse events in a single month. These events included medication errors, severe bedsores, infections, delirium from overuse of painkillers and excessive bleeding from improper use of blood thinners.Some hospital administrators did acknowledge that workers were underreporting problems. A national report on patient safety in 1999 found that hospital employees were often afraid to admit mistakes. But these days, the new report suggests, the problem is that employees don't recognize what constitutes harm or that some events even harmed patients and should be reported. In some cases, employees simply assumed someone else would report the error, or that it was so common it didn't need reporting. In response, Medicare officials have promised to develop a list of "reportable events" that hospitals could use.
A further problem the study found was that even after hospitals investigate preventable errors, they rarely change their practices. Some hospital executives told investigators that the negative events didn't reveal any "systemic quality problems."
Although more hospitals are pledging to report medical errors, Medicare beneficiaries and other patients still run the risk of being harmed from an error that could have been prevented through earlier reporting. Those who have been harmed could benefit from consulting with an attorney experienced in medical malpractice. Even if the hospital doesn't report a mistake in your care, you can.
Source: New York Times, "Report Finds Most Errors at Hospitals Go Unreported," Robert Pear, Jan. 6, 2012
]]>The wreck happened as the man and his four friends were driving home after attending two late-night parties. Witnesses later told police they saw the driver stumbling and wobbling before leaving. After the car crashed, he fled the scene, later claiming that he didn't know there were people in the car when he ran off. Otherwise he would have stayed, he said at his sentencing hearing. But according to court documents, when told that three of his friends were dead, he claimed that "they were fine when I left."
]]> When he was finally picked up by police three hours later, he had a blood-alcohol level of .16, twice the legal driving limit.His attorney said the driver reacted as any "panicky young man" would. Prosecutors, however, wrote that his "cowardly choice" to leave his friends dead and dying in the car reflected a "callous attitude."
There were apparent warning signs prior to the crash, according to the prosecutors' sentencing memo, including an incident where the driver destroyed a mailbox with his car and a crash that left his family's car abandoned and pinned on top of a mailbox pillar. And the only passenger who survived the crash allegedly told the driver to slow down just before the accident.
The crash has left the driver at high risk of several lawsuits. Not only did he plead guilty to the charges against him, but the fathers of two of his deceased friends are lawyers. Perhaps the only reason he might not be sued for wrongful death and personal injury is the fact that he's headed to prison for 20 years and will have little to no income to pay for damages.
Source: The Washington Post, "Driver who fled fatal Olney crash gets 20-year sentence," Mary Pat Flaherty, Jan. 5, 2012
]]>An 18-year-old man who was killed in a horrific train accident is being sued posthumously. In 2008, he was running to catch a train in the pouring rain. The train struck him, severing some of his body parts, which then went flying toward a woman. As a result she broke her wrist and leg. In her court case against the young man's estate, the court found it was "reasonably foreseeable" that the train would kill the man. The woman's lawyer said the lawsuit should be treated like any other negligence case. If a train passenger is injured in an accident after the engineer hit the brakes, the lawyer said, that person would have a solid personal injury case, and that this was no different.
]]> Although the case is highly unusual, it's not the first time a dead person has been sued for causing injury. In 2010 a police officer sued the victim of a fatal shooting, saying that the victim had injured him with his car.Do lawsuits like these go too far? Although the case of airborne body parts might be a gruesome one, it does make the point that people can be injured by almost anything in an accident, and the cost of treatment and recovery from those injuries can be expensive. Those who balk at the notion of suing an estate for injuries suffered in a fatal accident might find themselves in a similar position. Sometimes you don't know how you'll react to a situation until it comes flying at you.
Source: Huffington Post, "Hiroyuki Joho, Man Killed By Train, Sued After His Flying Body Parts Injured Woman," Dec. 29, 2011
]]>The National Transportation Safety Board now recommends a ban on all cellphone use, even hands-free, along with other electronic devices. Studies show that distracted driving happens in the brain, not just the hands. Even with the use of a headset, drivers need to look at the phone to dial, may take their hands off the wheel while gesturing, and can easily become engaged in the conversation to the point that they stop paying attention to cars or pedestrians around them.
]]> Some of these studies used driving simulators, in-vehicle data collection equipment and cellphone records of drivers involved in accidents. The findings are astonishing:-Using a cellphone while driving can quadruple your risk of crashing.
-Cellphone use significantly impairs a driver's reaction time.
-Dialing a phone nearly triples the risk of a crash or a close call, and talking increases the risk by roughly 30 percent.
But is Maryland's handheld cellphone ban strict enough to be effective? It's hard to say how often the $40 fine for a first offense ($100 for a repeat offense) actually prevents drivers from using a handheld cellphone, or whether the absence of that use actively prevents car accidents. But the studies suggest that an even stricter ban on cellphone use by drivers wouldn't do any harm on the road.
Source: DelmarvaNow.com, "Jury still out on state bans," Dec. 29, 2011
]]>Although gamblers realize that their actions could hurt their wallet, what they don't anticipate is getting physically injured in some way. But that's what happened to one man who filed a lawsuit recently.
]]> The Maryland man went to the Hollywood Casino in Perryville in November 2009, where he played the slot machines, according to a court complaint. He claims he was seated in a chair that was adjacent to the row of slot machines. The chair was attached to a rack assembly that was attached to the floor of the casino, which is designed to be fixed and immovable to ensure the safety of casino patrons. But he fell out of the chair and was injured, the court complaint said.The lawsuit claims the chair was negligently installed, inspected and maintained by the casino, which caused the chair to be unattached to both the assembly rack and the floor. He's seeking compensation for his injuries, which were undisclosed.
Patrons of a casino, racetrack or any other facility that is centered around entertainment have the right to enjoy themselves without having to worry about the furniture they're sitting on or other amenities. While it's unclear if or how the casino's parent company, PNGI Charles Town Gaming, has responded to the lawsuit, not taking a personal injury lawsuit seriously would be a gamble in itself.
Source: The West Virginia Record, "Md. man files suit after fall at Charles Town Races," Kyla Asbury, Dec. 27, 2011
]]>The Obama administration last week released preliminary findings of a study by the director of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and a professor from Columbia Business School. Their interviews with unemployed workers found that as many as 10 percent of those who are between the ages of 50 and 65 who didn't have access to at least $5,000 applied for disability benefits by the time their unemployment benefits expired. The closer to the time the benefits were set to expire, the more workers applied for Social Security benefits.
]]> This trend is anything but new. There's a long history of Americans seeking access to these benefits when the job market is down. But in one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, where will the trend lead?The Social Security Disability Insurance program was designed to help those who were prevented from working by illness or injury. Since its creation in the 1950s, it has grown substantially, now paying $130 million in benefits to 10.6 million workers. But there's fear that as more individuals subscribe to disability, the funding will dry up within the decade. The fund's reserves are projected to be exhausted by 2017 if changes to the program aren't made. If and when that happens, neither the unemployed nor the disabled people the fund was designed to support will be able to benefit from the government fund.
Source: Wall Street Journal, "Study Links Expiring Unemployment Benefits to Disability Applications," Damian Paletta, Dec. 16, 2011
]]>A baby was seriously injured in a car accident on Friday in Ocean City, Maryland. According to police, a speeding pickup truck rear-ended a car that was stopped at a red light. The car was carrying an 18-month old child in the back seat and one adult, the driver. The baby was airlifted to a hospital and remains in critical condition. Both drivers also went to a hospital, where the driver of the truck was treated and released.
]]> Police said they searched the truck and found an unspecified amount of PCP. They also gave a field sobriety test to the driver, who allegedly tested positive for being under the influence of the drug. He's been charged with possession and driving under the influence and is currently being held in jail on bond.It's not clear what injuries the baby suffered or whether she's expected to fully recover. Children her age are not fully developed and are more susceptible to permanent damage. They can also take longer to heal. But whether she recovers quickly or is left with injuries that will require long-term care, her family is likely go after the other driver for compensation, especially if he's found guilty of the charges against him.
Source: WBOC.com, "Update: Man Charged in O.C. Car Crash That Injured Infant," Kye Parsons, Dec. 19, 2011
]]>In one of the lawsuits, patients of two surgeons claim they were misled about the extent of their need for mesh stents to widen blood vessels suffering from arterial blockages. The hospital where the surgeons practiced notified more than 500 patients that they may have had unnecessary stent surgeries. And there's concern among doctors, lawyers and legislators that the practice extended well beyond these cardiologists and their hospital.
]]> The business of stent surgery is a lucrative one, which is why health care regulators and courts are concerned about wasteful spending and fraud. Although he hasn't been accused of any crimes, one of the doctors in the aforementioned lawsuit, a former chief of cardiology at a Baltimore County hospital, has more than 200 cases pending against him.The malpractice cases must prove two points: that the doctor was negligent, and that the negligence caused harm. That might be difficult to prove because even if a patient's arterial blockage was exaggerated, it could be argued that the stent was still necessary. And even if it wasn't immediately necessary, a doctor could say that eventually it would have been, and that the patient simply received it earlier than they absolutely needed it.
The first 25 of the 200 cases against the former cardiology chief are scheduled to be heard in 2012. The outcome of those lawsuits could affect the verdicts of the rest of his cases, as well as those of the other latest surgeons to be accused. Of course, no two medical malpractice cases are exactly the same. Those who suspect they had unnecessary stent surgery will still be well within their rights to seek compensation if they were lied to for the sake of profit.
Source: Baltimore Business Journal, "New Midei cases ensnare three more stents doctors," Scott Dance, Dec. 15, 2011
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