California Injury Blog

Published on: July 8, 2007

Time for a Great New American Enterprise – The 100 Mile Per Gallon Automobile

By Brian Chase

American automakers are fighting hard to stop a Senate bill that proposes a 40% increase in automobile fuel economy within thirteen years, by the year 2020. Instead of fighting to maintain their inefficient ways and continually losing market share to foreign car makers, why isn’t the American automobile industry challenging itself and foreign automakers to develop the most fuel efficient and safe automobiles?

Why this “can’t do” attitude from the American auto industry? They do everything they can from lobbying, to threats, to propaganda to fight progressive fuel economy and safety legislation. Why does the American auto industry have to be mandated by laws to do the right thing when it comes to auto safety and efficiency? Their political and lobbying power is so great; they pressure our elected representatives into mediocrity and make them back down from doing what is in the country’s best interest?

Do you see the European and Japanese automakers fighting against fuel economy and safety regulations? The foreign automakers seem to be developing safer, smarter and more efficient cars without government regulations. Is it possible that the American’s “can’t do” attitude is what has gotten them into their poor economic performance of late and has lost them major portions of the American automobile market?

President John F. Kennedy, in a speech to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961 said, “Now it is time to take longer strides–time for a great new American enterprise–time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.”

President Kennedy committed the United States to achieve, before the decade was out, “… landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
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Published on: July 7, 2007

ATV ACCIDENT CAUSES CHILD DEATH – SHOULD GRANDFATHER BE CHARGED WITH ‘CHILD ENDANGERMENT’?

By Brian Chase

Four-year-old Jayden Railey Bennett was driving his four-wheel ATV when he veered off of a dirt road and into the path of an oncoming semi. The truck driver, 43-year-old Lemoore resident Martin Garcia, was apparently driving under the speed limit and was not at fault. Jayden was wearing a helmet, but neither his safety equipment nor his little body could deflect the sheer force of a semi truck.

The question is how could this happen? And was Jayden too young to be driving an ATV? While state law does not set a minimum age to drive an ATV on private property, when operating an ATV on public land in California, state law currently requires that all ATV riders under 18 years of age must have an ASI ATV Safety Certificate, or be supervised by an adult who possesses the Certificate.

According to the Fresno Bee, Jayden was following a group of older children when he crossed onto the public road and his grandfather, who was supposed to be watching him, was nowhere in sight. Now Jayden’s grandfather, seventy-year-old William Bennett of Goshen, could be charged with child endangerment, said Scott Harris, a California Highway Patrol officer.

Dr. Larry Foreman has seen it more times than he would like to admit. Dr. Foreman, who is an emergency room physician at Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, indicated that he has seen hundreds of children injured riding ATVs at the nearby Oceano State Vehicular Recreation Area, on California’s Central Coast. He has observed that younger children often try to ride an ATV that is too large and too powerful for them to control, leading to injuries. Dr. Foreman indicated that he did not believe that a four-year old child would have the maturity or the knowledge to safely drive an ATV. His concerns are echoed by the ATV Safety Institute who recommends that children be able to perceive danger in advance and that they have the mental, emotional and physical development to be able to drive an ATV safely before solo-piloting these vehicles.

Dr. Foreman said he has tried several times to get the Legislature to pass laws that would set age limits for ATV riders on public property, especially at places like Oceano Dunes. Dr. Foreman pointed to guidelines established by an ATV safety association created by some major ATV manufacturers and based on the child’s age and size of the ATV.
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Published on: July 6, 2007

Shuttle Van Accident in Philadelphia – 1 Dead 15 injured

By Brian Chase

A meat-packing plant’s shuttle van, which was carrying workers to the plant, overturned on a Philadelphia expressway early Monday morning, killing one passenger and injuring 15 others, according to an article posted on the Philadelphia Daily News’ Web site.

The driver of the 1980 Dodge Sportsman van, 51-year-old Jean-Baptiste Saint Louis, was driving the vehicle northbound on Route 309 when he lost control and the van went onto the shoulder of the freeway, flipping over on a grassy embankment, the article said. No other vehicles were involved in the accident, officials said.

The 15 other workers, a majority of them Haitian, were taken to local hospitals to treat their injuries, some of them life-threatening, the newspaper reported. Names of the deceased and injured have not yet been released. The crash is still under investigation, but officials say they don’t believe alcohol was a factor. Police are however performing a toxicology test on the driver as part of procedure, the article said. Traffic was snarled on the expressway for about five hours Monday morning.
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Published on: July 5, 2007

Amusement Park Accident Severs Teens Legs

By Brian Chase

A 13-year-old girl whose legs were severed above the ankles as she rode on the Superman Tower of Power thrill ride at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, is in stable condition, but her left foot is just too severely damaged to repair, according to an article posted on MSNBC’s Web site. However, doctors were able to reattach her right foot.

Kaitlyn Lasitter’s feet were lopped off by a broken cable in the ride, investigators with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture said. The investigation into the June 21 incident is ongoing. The state has also been trying to find out what caused the cable to break in the ride. Investigators are reportedly getting statements from eyewitnesses, reviewing statements and sorting through physical evidence and photographs of the scene.

Officials say the ride was most recently inspected on April 5 and inspectors found it was operating normally. The same ride also reportedly passed inspections over the last four years. The ride apparently lifts thrill seekers 177 feet straight up and then drops them nearly the same distance, with speeds reaching up to 54 miles per hour. As a safety precaution, Six Flags officials say they have shut down similar rides in their other parks so they can carry out inspections to ensure their safety.
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Published on: July 4, 2007

FOOD POISONING OR JUST THE FLU?

By Brian Chase

So you have diarrhea, blurred or double vision, muscle weakness, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, and headache. Is it the flu, or was it something you ate? A steady, intense pain that becomes more intense can be appendicitis, which can be mistaken for food poisoning.

So how do you know? Food poisoning is difficult to diagnose. It takes time to send a stool sample to a laboratory and get the results back. It is about a 24 hour process after visiting your doctor, which is about how long it takes to recover from many forms of food poisoning. By the time results come back, most people are nearly back to normal.

If several people, who ate the same thing, become sick, food poisoning should be considered. Dehydration is one of the most troubling problems associated with food poisoning and the severe diarrhea that follows. If you experience a fast heart beat, feeling faint, low blood pressure and a lack of urine output, you should be seen by your doctor. If you suspect that you have become sick after eating at a restaurant you should notify your county health department. For our county it is the Orange County Health Department.

Dr. David Crane, an emergency room physician at Carroll Hospital Center, http://www.ccgh.com/content/ , in Westminster, MD, said that many illnesses that cause diarrhea, fever, cramping can be transmitted by food-borne pathogens, with the most commonly reported being salmonella.
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Published on: July 3, 2007

Chevy Blazer Rollover Accident Causes Multiple Children Fatalities

By Brian Chase

A ripped tire tread caused a rollover and fiery collision on Route 152 in Fresno Sunday evening, killing two children and injuring two adults, according to a news article in the Madera Tribune. California Highway Patrol officials said that a 2000 Chevrolet Blazer was traveling west on the highway when the tread on the vehicle’s right rear tire separated from the tire and struck the inside of the wheel well, the article stated.

Once the tire blew, the driver, Micaela Cornelio lost control of the vehicle, causing it to roll over and skid on its roof through the median and into oncoming traffic on the eastbound side of the highway. A Cadillac then rammed into the overturned Blazer, the newspaper reported.

Jonathan Cornelio, 10 and 14-year-old Saira Perez, both passengers in the Blazer, were pronounced dead at the local hospital shortly after the crash. Micaela Cornelio, 33, and another 12-year-old boy who wasn’t identified, both suffered severe injuries and were air-lifted to local hospitals. Another 14-year-old, who was a passenger in the Cadillac, also suffered significant injuries and was taken to the hospital, the article said.

CHP Officer Thomas Isler told the reporter that the driver of the Blazer “may have overcorrected after the tire blew,” causing the vehicle to roll over. He said that after the tread separated causing the tire to blow, the driver of the Blazer swerved and completely lost control. According to another man who was changing his tire on the eastbound shoulder of the highway, the Blazer flipped over multiple times before it skidded into oncoming traffic. Both the Blazer and the Cadillac came to a stop within 100 feet of his parked car, according to the shaken motorist.

This is his quote from the article describing the horrific sight of the crash:

“I heard their tire go. Then it sounded like a bomb went off. When I looked up, it was coming right at me upside down. I jumped for the ditch on the other side of my car.”
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Published on: July 2, 2007

Three-Vehicle Crash in High Desert Kills Five Church Group Members

By Brian Chase

A community in Riverside is mourning the death of five people – including three teenagers of a church youth group and their 28-year-old director — who died in a fiery crash last week after their van crashed with a pickup truck and a car on an isolated stretch of Highway 395 in the High Desert south of Kramer Junction, according to an article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

Nine members of the First Presbyterian Church in Upland were inside the 11-passenger van returning from a mission to a sister church in Bishop when it was struck. The article stated that the impact was severe enough to tear a Ford pickup into pieces and in fact, tore apart the truck’s body from its chassis, leaving the engine and the transmission lying on the ground. Apart from those who died, at least nine people were injured in the crash, the newspaper reported.

The crash was first reported shortly before 3 p.m. on June 23. It happened about six miles south of Highway 58, near Edwards Air Force Base. Smoke could be seen 17 miles from the crash site, according to the highway patrol. Several witnesses helped victims. One of then, an off-duty battalion chief with the Corona Fire Department, rescued a woman from the burning van with the help of others even as they were being driven away by the heat of the desert combined with the burning vehicle.

This collision followed another multi-fatality crash June 22 on the 40 Freeway near Ludlow when a Chevrolet Trailblazer, carrying four passengers, flipped over. In that crash, three of the vehicle’s occupants were pronounced dead on the scene.
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Published on: July 1, 2007

Fatal Orange County Motorcycle Accident

By Brian Chase

The motorcycle rider who died Saturday as a result of a collision with a truck on the Riverside Freeway has been identified as Calvin Moody, 34-years-old of Compton, California.

The motorcycle accident occurred in the westbound lanes of the 91 Freeway near Gypsum Canyon Road according to the Orange County Sheriff-Corner, Larry Esslinger, as reported by the CBS2 website.

Moody was declared dead at about 5:00 p.m. Saturday in Anaheim at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital after colliding with the truck about an hour earlier.
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Published on: June 30, 2007

Settlement Talks to Begin in Boston Tunnel Wrongful Death Lawsuit

By Brian Chase

When I read this, the first thing that came to my mind was this could absolutely happen on any California’s freeway, with the amount of new construction we have going on here all the time. The news is that settlement talks are about to begin in Boston between the family of a motorist killed about a year ago by failing panels in the Big Dig, Boston’s central artery and tunnel project, and attorneys for the companies that designed and built the project. The sticker price for the construction project was$14.7 billion, the costliest project in the history of this country.

According to an article in the Boston Globe a wrongful death lawsuit was brought by the family of Milena Del Valle, a 39-year-old woman who was killed July 10, 2006, when several concrete ceiling panels fell from the Interstate 90 connector tunnel as she and her husband drove toward Boston’s Logan Airport. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names the Turnpike Authority and companies connected with the design and construction of the project.

Inspectors who checked out the tunnel after the accident believe that the bolts that were holding the ceiling panels in place came loose because of failures in the epoxy resin that is meant to glue them in place, the article said. After the accident, repairs were made throughout that tunnel system and concrete panels were supported with more bolts and brackets. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has said she will decide by the end of this month if her office will pursue criminal charges against the companies named in the wrongful death lawsuit.
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Published on: June 29, 2007

Defective Seatbelt Case Awarded $32.5 Million by Jury

By Brian Chase

Earlier this month a Florida jury awarded $32.5 million to a man who suffered severe brain injuries when the seatbelt shoulder restraint in his 1993 Ford Escort failed during a head-on collision 11 years ago, according to an article published in the legal journal, Lawyers USA. The award came for 37-year-old Mark Force after more than a decade after the accident and two failed trials.

The first trial held in 2003 ended in Ford Motor Co.’s favor. But the appellate court, citing improper jury instruction in 2004 sent it back to trial court. But a second trial ended in a hung jury last year. The most recent trial this month lasted eight days when the six-person jury deliberated for half a day before finding Ford and Mazda – which designed the defective seatbelt system – liable for Force’s severe head injuries.

The plaintiff’s attorney says key evidence in this case included internal documents from Ford and Mazda – 45 complaints about Ford Escort’s seatbelt system. This evidence reportedly convinced jurors that the seatbelt retractor in American Escorts was defective and lacked the safety features used on the same vehicle in Canada. Ford, of course, plans to appeal the verdict. Ford’s attorneys say the seatbelt did its job and in fact saved Force’s life by preventing him from being ejected from the car.
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