Philadelphia Top Injury Lawyer Blog

Between 20% and 30% of all car accidents and truck accidents are caused by distracted drivers, according to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Proliferate cell phone use has made talking and texting on the phone the primary cause of driver distraction and a significant contributing factor in Philadelphia personal injury car accidents. According to a NHTSA study, Philadelphia drivers are 1.3 times more likely to be involved in a collision while talking on a phone. The risk more than doubles when drivers are dialing a cell phone and increases even further when Philadelphia drivers text while on the road.

Concern over the impact of cell phone use on Philadelphia personal injury car accidents caused the city to enact a cell phone law last November banning talking, dialing and texting on a handheld device while driving a motor vehicle. The severity of the problem prompted the Pennsylvania House to approve a statewide bill that, if passed by the Senate as expected, will strictly ban talking and texting on handheld cell phones while driving (see our January 27 post). National accidents attributed to cell phone use led the U.S. Department of Transportation to recently ban texting by commercial truck and bus drivers.

In a Philadelphia cell phone-related car accident late last year, a van driver ran a red light while talking on his cell phone, crashing into the front of a SEPTA bus. The crash caused the bus to lose control and ram into an El support column. Eighteen people were injured. A passenger in a SUV driven by a Pennsylvania resident suffered catastrophic injuries when the driver collided with another vehicle while texting. A truck driver talking on his cell phone on I-70 rammed a car in bad weather, killing a mother and two children.

If you are involved in a Philadelphia car or truck accident, whether or not cell phone use played a possible role, contact a Philadelphia personal injury lawyer about your rights.

Yesterday, Philadelphia representatives voted for a tough new bill strictly banning handheld cell phone use while driving. Overwhelmingly approved by the Pennsylvania House, the bill now goes to the Senate. If passed, Pennsylvania will become the fifth state to ban both talking and texting while driving.

Driving a car is such a normal everyday part of American life that most people take it for granted. Drivers regularly apply makeup or shave on the way to work, munch their lunches while driving between errands, check through their CDs and pop in some new tunes while on the highway, plug new destinations into their GPS units, and more. In pursuit of our fast-paced multi-tasking lifestyle, Americans seem driven to pack as much activity into every single second as they can. Multi-tasking among teens and young adults who regularly spend in excess of 8 to 10 hours plugged into electronics -- listening to music on their iPods while surfing the Internet, talking on cell phones and texting simultaneously -- has sparked recent media concern. Put these kids behind a wheel and traffic safety officials say you have a recipe for disaster.

In fact, Philadelphia drivers of any age who combine driving with other activities decrease concentration and increase the risk of personal injury car accidents. Studies have found that people don't actually multi-task as well as they think they do. The brain focuses on one thing at a time. Talking on the phone while driving impairs response time as much as driving drunk. If you talk on the phone while driving, you brain focuses on your conversation, causing reaction time to lag when a car accident situation occurs. Decreased response time is the same whether you're using a handheld phone or hands-free headset. It's the conversation that is distracting. The result of distracting driving in Philadelphia has been deadly, prompting Pennsylvania to join other states in considering distracted driver laws that focus on cell phone use, particularly texting.

More next time

An improperly administered radiation treatment for throat cancer killed a 43-year-old New York City man just before Christmas 2007. Before he died, three overdoses of radiation left the man blind, deaf, severely burned, his mouth full of ulcers and his teeth falling out. Unable to swallow and in extreme pain, the man died of his injuries. It never should have happened and, certainly, the New York City hospital where the man went for treatment shouldn't have made the same radiation dosage error three times. A computer error was found to be at fault. Instead of directing a linear accelerator to target the man's throat cancer, the computer caused the machine to blast the man's brain stem and neck with lethal doses of high-energy radiation.

The potentially lethal danger of high-energy radiation treatments gone awry was revealed by The New York Times this week following an extensive investigation. The Times naturally found that radiation dosage accidents are common nationwide. Last June, more than 90 Philadelphia veterans were given incorrect doses of radiation during treatment for prostate cancer. Dr. John Feldmeier, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toledo, told the Times an estimated 1 in 20 patients is injured during radiation treatment.

Radiation is a standard treatment for cancer and one that is often highly effective. The Times pointed out that serious accidents are rare; however, medical radiation is being used increasingly frequently as a diagnostic and treatment tool. According to The Times, "The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients get radiation therapy."

While radiation therapy serves a helpful use in modern medicine, radiation accidents can inflict unbearable pain and result in death. If you or someone you care for has been the victim of a radiation accident, a Philadelphia personal injury attorney can investigate to see if medical malpractice or negligence has occurred.

It was the medical malpractice story that shocked Philadelphia and the nation. The lives of veterans stricken with prostate cancer were put at serious risk by botched radiation treatments performed at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center between 2003 and 2008. In testimony before a Senate committee last June, first the Department of Veterans Affairs, then the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were quick to deny responsibility for a problem that continued over six years. However, The Philadelphia Inquirer found documentation that the problem was not only known but ignored by both agencies.

Dubbed "the Philadelphia disaster" by the national press, the case linked a Philadelphia VA hospital physician to scores of radiation dosage errors during administration of radiation seed implantation (brachytherapy) in prostate cancer patients. At least 92 veterans were allegedly given incorrect radiation doses during the procedure. Despite admitting "missing his target," the physician, a radiation oncologist, denied blame. Many of the veterans incorrectly treated suffered additional medical problems as a result of their treatment. Several vets have seen their cancer worsen but because of their botched radiation treatments now have fewer treatment options, all of which will significantly diminish their quality of life.

Among the issues are:

• Why neither the doctor nor Philadelphia VA Medical Center notified patients of the possible risk that radioactive seeds introduced during prostate cancer treatment could migrate to other body sites and cause damage.


• Why the brachytherapy team continued to administer treatments even after they knew radiation doses were flawed, due in part to broken monitoring equipment.


• Why a physician who was making consistent errors was knowingly allowed to continue practicing at the hospital.

The Philadelphia VA Medical Center's brachytherapy program was eliminated in June 2008 when the problem came to public light. By the end of November 2009, 31 veterans and their spouses had filed personal injury medical malpractice claims against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeking a total of $58 million in damages for hospital radiation errors.

In Philadelphia, wrongful death is described as when an individual dies as the result of negligence by another individual or an entity such as a business, corporation, manufacturer, or other. A wrongful death personal injury claim seeks compensation for the victim's survivors from the person or entity that caused the individual's death.

A modern legal concept, wrongful death was not one of the early core "common law" legal principles brought to the U.S. by English colonists on which American's laws were first based. Those early common laws allowed victims injured by negligence to pursue compensation but held that the right to recovery died with the individual. Early law denied families to sue for the losses suffered by the death of a loved one: loss of earnings, loss of financial security, loss of family companionship and support, and loss of all the specific and even esoteric contributions the individual would have made to his family had he lived. Seeing a need for a path to such recovery, states gradually passed wrongful death laws. All 50 states now wrongful death laws, although they can vary widely from state to state.

In Philadelphia, a wrongful death claim can be made anytime death results from the negligent actions of another. State of Pennsylvania statute allows personal injury lawyers to sue for recovery to compensate the individual's survivors for the financial loss sustained by the death of their family member. Compensation is based on the portion of the deceased individual's earnings that would have supported his family had he lived. This can include funds for housing, food, clothing, education, health care, recreation, entertainment and gifts. In Philadelphia, wrongful death recovery is also allowed for the value of the care, comfort and companionship the individual would have provided his family over his lifetime.

Next time: Keys to proving wrongful death

Boy Scout outings are supposed to be fun and exciting, among the experiences that shape boys into men. But for one Philadelphia area Boy Scout, a troop trip turned tragic last weekend. The 12-year-old Pottstown boy was on a Boy Scout trip to a Pennsylvania ski resort for a weekend of sledding with his buddies. The boy died early Saturday morning after his plastic saucer sled collided with a metal ski lift tower Friday night. Fellow troop members administered first aid until rescue workers could reach the boy, but the boy died of personal injuries not long after arrival at the hospital.

The Philadelphia area boy's death was not the first at the Ski Denton resort northeast of Pittsburgh. Just over a year ago, a 13-year-old boy died in a skiing accident at the resort.

Boys will be boys -- rambunctious, exuberant, energetic. But when Philadelphia parents send their sons off on what is supposed to be a weekend, they don't expect the weekend to end tragically in a sterile emergency room. Young life full of hope and promise cut unexpectedly short may be the most difficult death to cope with.

Sometimes life is cut short by a tragic accident, but sometimes negligence is involved in wrongful death. Particularly with another death occurring as the result of a personal injury accident, Philadelphia parents might wonder if the ski resort took all appropriate safety precautions. When other parents or groups are responsible for your child's safety, it is normal for parents to wonder about the quality of the supervision provided. When a child dies, grieving parents have many questions. A Philadelphia personal injury attorney can investigate and discover the facts. If negligence occurred, you may be able to recover hospital bills and damages. Even if no fault is found, an investigation by an experienced Philadelphia personal injury attorney can provide parents with needed peace of mind.

A 45-year-old Philadelphia nurse who was permanently disabled during a routine heart test was just awarded in excess of $5 million in a medical malpractice suit brought against the hospital and doctor. In America we understand that doctors cannot save every patient. We know that sometimes life-saving efforts are no match for the inevitability of death. We realize that medical science and technology aren't advanced enough to cure every ill. Surgery, catastrophic illness and severe personal injury accidents all carry risk. Risk may be part of life, but we certainly don't expect to be risking our lives when we go to our doctor for a simple, routine, diagnostic procedure.

Doctors are no more immune to mistakes than the rest of us, but when doctors make a mistake their patients can wind up paying for it for the rest of their lives. Medical errors are the 8th leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. Nearly 100,000 people die each year as the result of errors made by their doctors or other medical professionals; and thousands more are seriously injured, some irreparably so like the Philadelphia nurse.

"Nearly 15% of all patients are misdiagnosed, and half of those face serious harm, even death, because of the error," Dr. Jerome Groopman, a noted physician and medical author, said in the September/October 2008 issue of AARP magazine. Groopman noted that, surprisingly, only 20% of misdiagnosis errors are the result of technical problems; 80% are cognitive errors "due to mistakes in the mind of the doctor."

Doctors are not infallible. Medical mistakes happen every day. If you feel that you are the victim of a doctor's mistake, a Philadelphia medical malpractice personal injury lawyer can review your case to see if you are eligible for compensation.

Walmart and Claire's stores in Philadelphia and across the country started pulling popular children's jewelry items from their shelves yesterday in the wake of a highly publicized report that these jewelry items can carry harmful toxic levels of the dangerous heavy metal cadmium. Philadelphia parents were justifiably alarmed to discover that the jewelry their children may be wearing could contain dangerous levels of a known toxin and carcinogen. Health officials warned that the risk of serious personal injury from cadmium is greater than the dangers posed by lead.

Shiny, strong and malleable at low temperatures, cadmium has become the key to China's low-cost production of cheap jewelry exported to the U.S. and sold in Philadelphia stores. In the pursuit of low cost goods China has a history of ignoring potential personal injury health issues (remember the lead paint scare?). While international standards limit cadmium levels for fashion jewelry to not more than 0.1%, an Associated Press investigation found much higher levels in China-made children's jewelry purchased in the U.S. Laboratory tests found at least 10% cadmium in 10% of the children's jewelry items tested with some pieces of jewelry containing as much as 80% to 90% of the extremely toxic metal.

Concern about potential health risks and personal injury to children in Philadelphia and across the U.S. has sparked investigations by federal and state agencies. Philadelphia personal injury lawyers work to protect Philadelphia children from serious personal injury caused by defective products. The cadmium jewelry scare is just the latest in a long list of defective products produced without concern for the welfare and safety of Philadelphia children. According to recent medical research, cadmium can hinder the brain development of the young children to which this jewelry is marketed and is known to cause cancer.

Investigation into a September motorcycle accident that caused serious personal injury to a motorcycle driver and his passenger has led to a felony charge. Last week police charged the Trenton, New Jersey woman who caused the horrific personal injury accident with a felony count of operating a vehicle without a valid license. The woman was driving a friend's Toyota when she ran a stop sign last September and plowed into a motorcycle driven by a Levittown, Pennsylvania man. The crash crushed the left legs of both the 52-year-old driver and his wife, a passenger on the motorcycle. The woman who caused the personal injury accident just northeast of Philadelphia was also charged with failing to stop at a stop sign and careless driving.

Serious personal injuries often occur when cars collide with motorcycles in Philadelphia accidents. As in the case of the Pennsylvania couple, motorcycle drivers and their passengers may suffer horrific, life-changing personal injuries when collisions occur. Serious personal Injuries can require weeks of hospitalization and rehabilitation resulting in exorbitant medical bills, loss of income when injuries keep victims from working, extreme family hardship and severe physical and mental trauma.

Because many people believe the Easy Rider myth that motorcycle drivers are aggressive and reckless, proving fault and recovering damages when serious Philadelphia personal injury motorcycle accidents occur is more complicated and difficult than with auto accident claims. Philadelphia personal injury lawyers must work to find witness to the motorcycle accident and obtain reliable interviews. To counter arguments that the motorcycle driver was speeding or driving recklessly, Philadelphia personal injury attorneys may have to interview the motorcycle operator's friends and co-workers to establish his character and safe driving record. Accident reconstruction experts may need to be consulted. When Philadelphia motorcycle accidents result in serious personal injuries, Philadelphia personal injury attorneys work to see that the victim recovers the money necessary to cover his medical bills and rebuild his life.

Once again brutish winter weather led Philadelphia headlines as an Alberta Clipper blanketed states from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Coast with ice, snow and freezing temperatures. Philadelphia residents endured a slow, slushy commute this morning peppered with car accidents on the slippery roads. Many Philadelphia schools and businesses opened late this morning to give buses and employees a little longer to navigate Philadelphia's treacherous highways.

One inch of snow was recorded in Philadelphia last night but western Pennsylvania and parts of Central Ohio received up to 6 inches of snow. Snow-related treacherous highway conditions on I-70 near Columbus, Ohio are believed to have played a role in yesterday's tragic truck accident. As reported on national newscasts, the driver of an empty tanker truck lost control of the vehicle which careened across the median and crashed head-on into a mini-bus carrying disabled adults home from a training session. The bus driver and three of the adults were killed in the truck accident.

Philadelphia was fortunate to be spared a highway fatality, although numerous car accidents and truck accidents were reported throughout the area this morning, adding to computing headaches. Things didn't get any easier once people parked their cars and headed across slippery parking lots for the office door. Melting snow and freezing temperatures turned Philadelphia parking lots and sidewalks in skating rinks. Dangerous slip and fall accidents were a serious concern this morning. With sunny skies expected today followed by overnight temperatures in the chilly mid-teens, the melt-and-freeze cycle should continue to make Philadelphia sidewalks and parking lots a dangerous slip and fall personal injury hazard all weekend.

When bad weather results in car and truck accidents or causes slip and fall accidents, investigation by a Philadelphia personal injury attorney can discover possible fault or negligence on the part of drivers or property owners and help you collect the settlement you deserve.

With Philadelphia wrapped in a blanket of frigid arctic air, space heater sales are on the rise. With temperatures hovering in the single and double-digits and wind chills dipping below zero, Philadelphia residents are turning to space heaters to augment overworked furnaces. Unfortunately, fire, death and personal injury can occur when space heaters are used.

According to the Consumer Reports website, every year electric space heaters account for 40% of the heating-related deaths and 30% of the heating-related personal injuries in Philadelphia and across the U.S. Fuel-fired space heaters carry their own serious risks and are responsible for numerous carbon monoxide deaths every winter. Space heaters account for 16% of all reported Philadelphia home fires.

• On December 28, 2008, seven people died when fire ripped through their Philadelphia home. The source of the fire was found to be a kerosene space heater.
• In March 2009, a 7-year-old Philadelphia child was severely burned when sparks from a space heater started a fire at a local trailer park.
• In October 2009, a 63-year-old Philadelphia man died in a home fire. Firefighters determined

that a spark from the electric cord of a faulty space heater ignited the blaze.

Firefighters say Philadelphia space heater fires are usually caused by faulty construction, faulty electric cords, overuse of electric outlets, placement near combustible objects or a combination of these factors. It can take careful investigation by a Philadelphia personal injury lawyer to discover what happened and who is at fault when people suffer personal injury or are killed by fires related to space heater use. Often defective products are to blame.

Firefighters recommend that Philadelphia residents keep combustibles like paper, curtains, blankets and other household items at least three feet around space heaters. When space heaters are in use, rooms should be properly vented to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. Only the fuel recommended by the manufacturer should be burned in non-electric space heaters.

In the wake of a tragic New Year's Eve car accident that killed two in Philadelphia comes a report from the Institute for Transportation Engineers that an estimated 120 people die every day on U.S. highways in "vehicle-related crashes." Car accidents, truck accidents and motorcycle accidents are the leading cause of death among Americans aged 1 to 34 according to statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Interestingly, people who seriously fear being victimized by robbery, rape or assault crimes fail to associate similar danger with driving.

In an interview with Scripps Howard News Service, Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety had this explanation for the phenomenon:

"People don't generally think of driving as a risky task. They think that crashes happen to other people, not themselves. There is a researcher who calls it the illusory zone of immunity. When we do things day after day that are routine, we don't think of them as being particularly dangerous. But of course, the statistics show that getting behind the wheel of a car is probably the riskiest thing any of us do on any given day."

Over the past decade, more than 41,000 people have died in car accidents nationally and thousands more sustain serious personal injuries, many in the Philadelphia area. The AAA Foundation (American Automobile Association) calls car accident and truck accident deaths a "public health crisis" on its website. Highway safety experts lament that it is a crisis that seems to be flying under most people's radar. Safety experts point out and Philadelphia personal injury lawyers agree that daily car accidents kill far more than the occasional train wreck or airline disaster but rarely garner major headlines.

The new year had barely started when two people were killed and at least six more people were injured in a horrific three-car accident in Philadelphia. The 3 a.m. car accident on I-95 near the Bridge Street exit shut down north-bound freeway lanes until 9 a.m. this morning as police investigated and cars and debris were cleared from the roadway. Rainy weather may have contributed to the accident. Police are still investigating.

The car accident on I-95 early this morning was just one of several fatal Philadelphia car accidents this week. In a violent car crash in Southwest Philadelphia early Tuesday morning, a 21-year-old Philadelphia area man was killed and two more people were injured. The accident occurred when the 19-year-old driver lost control of the car which jumped the curb and ran into a tree. The man who was killed, a passenger in the car, was ejected from the vehicle during the crash. In another Philadelphia car accident early Tuesday, a passenger was killed and the driver critically injured when their speeding car crashed into a utility pole on G Street.

When car accidents occur, particularly when multiple vehicles are involved as in the I-95 crash earlier today, careful and lengthy investigation may be required to unravel the facts and determine fault. Police reports are an important starting point for Philadelphia personal injury lawyers investigating car accidents that have resulted in serious injuries or fatalities. Police reports may be incomplete or inaccurate, placing the burden of accurate investigation on Philadelphia car accident personal injury attorneys. In addition, the police officer's conclusion regarding fault is not generally admissible as evidence in court, placing even greater weight on the investigation conducted by the victim's Philadelphia personal injury lawyer.