California Injury Blog

Published on: April 9, 2007

Several Vehicles Perform Poorly in Crash Tests

By Brian Chase

Seat and head restraints in more than 60 percent of newer passenger vehicles on the road fail to offer optimal head and neck protection in rear-end crashes, a leading safety group said last week, according to a Reuters news report posted on ABC’s Web site .

Although the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that more vehicles performed better than before, several vehicle designs are still rate “marginal or poor,” said the group’s president, Adrian Lund. He said rear-end collisions are frequent and neck injuries are the most common reported in auto crashes, accounting for 2 million insurance claims annually that cost at least $8.5 billion.

“It’s not difficult or expensive to design more protective seat/head restraints,” Lund said.

The safety group’s study shows that head and seat restraints in 22 car models were rated good while 53 other vehicles posted marginal or poor scores. The results were based on analyses of restraint designs and simulated crashes at 20 mph. Tests analyzed how people of different sizes would be protected in a typical rear-end collision.

The results were an improvement over similar tests in 2004, when only eight models earned good ratings.
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Published on: April 9, 2007

E-Coli Outbreak Causes Closure of Foothill Ranch Souplantation

By Brian Chase

The Souplantation Restaurant in Foothill Ranch has been closed after a 12th case of E. coli was confirmed among customers and one employee tested positive for the bacteria, county health officials announced Saturday, according to a news report in The Orange County Register on Sunday.

Orange County Health Care Agency officials said they confirmed late Friday night that there was a 12th E. coli case tied to the restaurant located at 26572 Towne Center Drive. The agency said it involved a juvenile who ate at the restaurant March 25. Previous customers who were afflicted reported eating there March 23 or 24. Officials gave no further details about the person or his or her condition.

Souplantation voluntarily closed the restaurant late Friday afternoon as a precautionary measure because large crowds were expected over the Easter holiday weekend, a spokeswoman for the restaurant told the Register. She added that other employees were still being tested for the E. Coli bacteria as well.

Company officials also said that all the employees are being tested because many of them eat at the restaurant and could help authorities determine the cause of the outbreak.

Meanwhile county health officials are saying that they have not identified the source of the infections and cannot draw any conclusions about the possible source of the bacteria, the article said. Interviews with people who work at Souplantation showed that they also eat at the restaurant and could have become ill in the same manner as their customers who ate there, officials explained.
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Published on: April 9, 2007

What if YOU Were a Hit-and-Run Victim?

By Brian Chase

A 58-year-old bicyclist was hit by a hit-and run driver, while riding in a bicycle lane in Rancho Santa Margarita on Saturday. He is in extremely critical condition today, according to Orange county Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

Deputies arrested 32-year-old Agustin Hernandez Perez, who speaks no English and carried no driver’s license or other identification was arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run. They say Perez struck the bicyclist.

Orange County is full of 50-year-olds riding their bikes. This accident could have been me in “extremely critical condition”. From an economics/legal prospective let’s analyze the injured cyclist’s options using the facts as we know and I suspect them to be.
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Published on: April 8, 2007

Motorcyclist Killed in Hit-and-Run Crash

By Brian Chase

San Francisco Bay Area officials are looking for a hit-and-run driver believed to have fatally struck a 52-year-old motorcyclist Monday morning on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, according to a news report by Bay City News Service posted on the San Jose Mercury News’ Web Site.

The suspect’s car was found abandoned later that morning in a toll plaza parking lot, but authorities haven’t found the driver, according to the report.

Timothy Haagensen, a Concord resident, was killed around 5 a.m. as he was riding his 2000 Harley Davidson motorcycle in a left-side lane of westbound Interstate 80 just east of the toll plaza. California Highway Patrol officials said a witness saw a black 1990 four-door Honda ahead of Haagensen make an unsafe lane change into Haagensen’s lane, which caused the front end of Haagensen’s 2000 Harley Davidson to strike the Honda’s driver’s side door and Haagensen to lose control of his bike and get thrown about 100 yards east of the toll booths. The driver did not stop after hitting the motorcyclist, officials said.
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Published on: April 7, 2007

Seven Sickened by E.Coli after Eating at Lake Forest Souplantation

By Brian Chase

An E-Coli outbreak in Orange County traced back to local restaurant. The Souplantation, a San Diego-based salad-bar chain, is cooperating with Orange County health officials who are trying to pinpoint the food that caused six children and one adult to get sick after eating at their Lake Forest restaurant, according to an article published in The Orange County Register Tuesday.

Orange County health officials confirmed to the newspaper that those reportedly sickened by the food tested positive for E. coli O157:H7, the same deadly strain that affected hundreds of consumers in several other recent produce outbreaks that, starting last year, attracted national media attention.

The seven customers ate at the Towne Center Drive restaurant from March 23 to March 25. Though the investigation is ongoing, the restaurant – in a retail center in the community of Foothill Ranch – remains open, the Souplantation said. So far, no other cases have been reported, the article said.

The seven people – six children and one person over 70 years old – are recovering, local health authorities said. Three of the victims had to be hospitalized, according to the article.
Last year, 71 customers of Irvine-based Taco Bell were sickened after they ate contaminated shredded lettuce. That outbreak was limited to several East Coast restaurants. Taco Bell is facing several lawsuits filed nationwide pertaining to those episodes.
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Published on: April 6, 2007

Ford Pickup Rollover Death

By Brian Chase

Is this another death attributable to the weak roofs of Ford pickup trucks? The roofs of Ford pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles are negliently weak. They do not hold up in rolloveer accidents as they should, or as the roofs on some of the other Ford products do.

Although the following news report does not state the deceased driver died from the roof of her truck crushing in on her when it rolled over, I’d bet on it based upon the numerous similiar cases we have been involved with. Rollover accidents account for about a third of the auto accident fatalities in our country. Shouldn’t Ford Motor Co. being making their vehicles in such a way that occupants will survive the rollover?

According to a story in the Billings Gazette, a 52-year-old Laurel woman died the morning of April 6th in a one-vehicle rollover accident on Interstate 90 near Columbus. The woman was driving a 2002 Ford pickup westbound when her truck apparently hit ice on a bridge deck near mile marker 400. The truck went across the median, rolled and came to rest on its top in the eastbound lane. Their report was based upon information from the Montana Highway Patrol who added that the woman was wearing a seatbelt.

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Published on: April 6, 2007

Driving Distractions Contribute to Many Car Accidents

By Brian Chase

The Irvine Police Department said that neither drugs nor alcohol seemed to cause the accident that killed 18 year-old Northwood High School student Han Hung, and hospitalized his female passenger today after Hung lost control of his Acura and hit a tree, according to an article in the OC Register.

The cause of this terrible accident wasn’t stated in the new article but I do know that one of the primary factors involved in teenage auto accidents, especially single vehicle accidents, is driver distraction. Distraction by passengers is one of the biggest contributors, that is why young drivers have restrictions relating to who can ride in the vehicle with them.

A study done by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia , which surveyed more than 5,000 high school students, found that:

90 percent of teens said friends in the car distracted the driver
89 percent of teens said their friends used cell phones while they drove
79 percent of teens said passengers or the driver danced and sang in the car
20 percent of ninth- through 11th-graders have been involved in at least one crash as
a passenger in the last year.
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Published on: April 4, 2007

ELDERLY DRIVERS – HOW OLD IS TOO OLD?

By Brian Chase

Over the weekend police were called to yet another injury traffic collision. A Honda Accord broadsided a GMC Yukon, leaving the driver of the Accord in critical condition. The police indicated that it appeared neither alcohol nor drugs played a part in the accident. What could have caused this near fatal accident? Could it have been age? You see, the driver of the Accord is 87 years old.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. As our population ages we will need more stringent testing of older drivers for not only their sight, but actual ability to drive. At some age, maybe 70, a driver’s license renewal should include a sight test as well as an actual driving test, like when we first get a license. It isn’t good enough to wait for an accident or a plethora of tickets.
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Published on: April 4, 2007

Vicious Pitbull Attack Victim Saved by Courageous Boy

By Brian Chase

A 17-year-old boy saved a younger boy from a savage attack by two pit bulls Monday morning as they were walking to school according to story on a CBS website.

Jesus Jurado of Tempe, Arizona had just walked past his neighbor’s pit bulls in a trailer park without incident when the dogs attacked a 12-year-old boy walking behind him.

Jurado, risking injury to himself, rescued the boy who had already been bitten by the pit bulls. Both boys climbed up onto the roof a nearby parked car to escape further injury. According to Jurado the dogs were coming up the car after the boys, so he opened the car door and got the younger boy through and into the interior of the car for safety.

Jurado said the dogs then came after him and he again got back onto the roof of the car.

It wasn’t long before the police arrived. They got the same treatment from the pit bulls, the dogs went after them. The officers shot at the dogs, hitting them both. Animal control eventually arrived, captured the dogs and took custody of them.
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Published on: April 3, 2007

Airbag Failure

By Brian Chase

When a consumer buys an airbag-equipped vehicle, they expect the airbags to deploy properly in the event of an accident. Thousands of lives have been saved by airbags; however there has been a shocking increase in the number of injuries and fatalities caused by various airbag systems. Over the years, there have been many technological advances, yet airbag failures continue to occur. In many cases, airbag malfunctions take place in low to moderate-speed accidents where the excess force of the deploying airbag is responsible for the injury and/or death. Other significant airbag malfunctions include failure to deploy and deployment at the wrong time.

Development of the airbag began in the early 1950’s. GM, Ford, and Eaton Corporation were among the pioneers of crash testing to evaluate the airbag. On April 1, 1989 the United States government required the installation of airbags in the production of all new automobiles.
The typical components of a modern airbag system include; crash sensors, a gas generator, an airbag, and a diagnostic module. Some airbag systems also consist of a switch that deactivates the passenger side airbag. Crash sensors are designed to detect a collision by measuring sufficient deceleration of a vehicle. Gas generators instantaneously produce a high volume of gas in order to fill up the airbag and provide a cushion for the moving occupant. The stored airbag becomes fully inflated by the gas in about 30-to-40 milliseconds. Diagnostic modules monitor and confirm the readiness of an airbag system’s components. They processes information and in the event of a moderate to severe crash, they will send a signal to the inflator inside the airbag to inflate.

The majority of the victims of airbag malfunctions consist of short-stature drivers and children. The injuries and deaths of these occupants are often not the result of a faulty airbag. They are mostly due to the manufacturers poor airbag design. Driver’s side airbags deploy forward at 120 to 200 miles per hour and passenger side airbags deploy forward at 90 to 210 miles per hour. Airbags in both positions can impact the occupant with a force as high as 2000 pounds (nhtsa.gov). These airbags are termed overly aggressive airbags. They are designed and tested only for 50th-percentile adult male, about 5’9″ tall and weighing about 167 pounds. The built in danger is the failure of manufacturers to design and test airbags for smaller persons and children, as oppose to only for an “average man.”

According to the NHTSA, between 1990 and 2001, 133 child deaths were caused by airbags in low-severity accidents in which no other significant injuries would likely have been resulted. Of the 133 deaths, 111 were children between the ages of 1 and 11, and 22 of them were infants. In many cases, passenger-side airbags deploy horizontally and directly toward the child. In this case, the airbag is aimed directly at the child’s head or the back of the child’s car seat causing severe and fatal injuries.
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