OSHA Warns New York Employers and Workers of Hazards of Snow Cleanup

As New York continues to recover from last week’s snowstorm and in preparation for more winter storms, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) warns of potential dangers of snow cleanup and urges proper worker safeguards.

“Cleaning up after a storm encompasses a variety of tasks, each of which can carry risks if performed incorrectly or without proper safeguards," said Robert Kulick, OSHA’s regional administrator in New York in an OSHA news release. "We want people to know what those risks are and what steps they can take to protect themselves against these hazards."

OSHA wants workers, employers and the public in New York to be aware of the following hazards associated with snow removal and recovery work:

• Electric shock from contact with downed power lines or the use of ungrounded electrical equipment.
• Falls from snow removal on roofs, or while working in aerial lifts or on ladders.
• Being struck or crushed by trees, branches or structures that collapse under the weight of accumulated snow.
• Carbon monoxide poisoning from gasoline-powered generators in inadequately ventilated areas or idling vehicles.
• Lacerations or amputations from unguarded or improperly operated chain saws and power tools, and improperly attempting to clear jams in snow blowers.
• Slips or falls on icy or snow-covered walking surfaces.
• Being struck by motor vehicles while working in roadways.
• Hypothermia or frostbite from exposure to cold temperatures.

Ways to prevent these on the job hazards include:

• Assuming all power lines are energized, keeping a distance and coordinating with utility companies.
• Making certain that all electrically powered equipment is grounded.
• Providing and ensuring the use of effective fall protection.
• Properly using and maintaining ladders.
• Using caution around surfaces weighed down by large amounts of snow.
• Making certain all powered equipment is properly guarded and disconnected from power sources before cleaning or performing maintenance.
• Using and wearing eye, face and body protection.
• Clearing walking surfaces of snow and ice, and using salt or its equivalent where appropriate.
• Establishing and clearly marking work zones.
• Wearing reflective clothing.
• Using engineering controls, personal protective equipment and safe work practices to reduce the length and severity of exposure to the cold.

The New York Times reported today that continuing snow removal operations have hampered trash removal in New York City. A sanitation department representative told the newspaper that 50% of normal trash collection trucks would resume operation, but 50% of the trucks would still be used for snow removal operations.

45 Workers Suffer Carbon Monoxide Poisoning After Leak at NY Plant

Forty-five employees of La Mar Plastics in Freeport, NY on Long Island required medical attention due to carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning after a leak of the deadly gas at the plant where they worked.

According to The Washington Post, the incident occurred on Tuesday morning. Firefighters called to the scene found that the company’s gas heating system had likely flooded the building with carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide is a dangerous gas because it is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Improperly maintained, vented or defective fuel burning heaters, stoves, fireplaces or other fuel burning equipment can be the cause of carbon monoxide leaks. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning include headaches, dizziness, disorientation, nausea and fatigue. High levels of CO can be fatal.

Freeport assistant fire chief, Mark Stuparich to told the news source that while normal carbon monoxide levels are about 5 parts per million, indoor air readings at the plant recorded more than 500 parts per million.

Emergency services treated twenty employees on the scene and transported another twenty-five affected employees to the hospital.

La Mar Plastics manufactures molded plastic packaging.

Woman in Critical Condition after Elevator Accident at Brooklyn Hospital Mangles Leg

An accident in an elevator at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY has left one woman in critical condition from severe injuries to her leg.

According to myfoxny.com, the incident occurred about 4:45pm on Christmas day when a woman visiting the hospital tried to use the elevator.

As the elevator door closed, it entrapped the leg of the unidentified woman, reported the New York Daily News. The elevator then traveled upward eight floors, dragging the woman’s leg between the elevator car and the shaft, before it topped and someone called 911.

Firefighters responded and worked for nearly an hour before extracting the woman. She suffered injuries from the middle of her thigh to her foot and it was unclear whether doctors can save the leg.

She was transported to Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital where she underwent surgery.

The hospital told the Fox news station that there were no previous problems with the elevator.

Data in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), maintained by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), shows there were 21,876 injuries related to elevators and other lifts in 2009. While 19,652 of these people injured were treated and released from medical facilities, 2,224 people had injuries severe enough to have required hospitalization or caused death.

Double-Decker Bus Slams into Overpass Killing 4, Injuring More

Four people are dead and more than a dozen injured after a double-decker Megabus slammed into a railroad overpass while traveling on the roadway below, outside Syracuse, NY reported Syracuse.com.

The Megabus, operated by Coach USA and carrying 27 passengers, left Philadelphia at 10 p.m. on Friday headed for Toronto with stops in Syracuse and Buffalo.

About 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, the Megabus enroute from Philly to Syracuse was on the Onondaga Lake Parkway when it smashed into the railroad overpass because at 13 feet tall, it was too tall for the bridge’s 10 ft 9 in clearance. The bus then flipped onto its side, tossing passengers around inside.

The bus driver was lost and looking for the Regional Transportation Center on Park Street when the accident occurred.

Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh released the identities of three passengers killed as Kevin Coffey, 19, of Manhattan, KS, Ashwani Mehta, 39, of India and Rev. Benjamin Okerie, 35, of Malaysia. The name of the fourth passenger, a woman 18 years of age, is withheld pending identification by her family.

"Obviously the driver didn’t see the signs or didn’t realize the height of his bus, that the double-decker bus wouldn’t fit under that bridge," Walsh told CNN affiliate YNN.

A flashing yellow light alerts drivers to the low clearance of the overpass.

All passengers killed and those who were most seriously injured had been traveling on the bus’s upper deck.

Trying Your Case

After years of legal jousting, it is finally time for your case to go to trial. Of course, you had hoped it would settle for enough money to make the entire experience worthwhile and compensate you for your pain, suffering, lost wages and medical bills. Unfortunately, the defense lawyer or insurance company does not see it your way and are now challenging you to a duel, courtroom style. Who has the better case, the more experienced trial lawyer, and the favor of the liberal or conservative judge or jury? Select a jury, choose your weapon (to coin a phrase), and fire with the most powerful strategic ammunition available. Who will strike and who will miss? It is time for the trial of your action.

Expect the experience to be very difficult. You will be sitting around the courthouse for days, if not weeks, much of the time uninvolved in the actual trial. You will likely attempt to read the jurors’ minds and assess them by their demeanor and dress. You may go as far as mouthing the words hello or smiling at jurors as they pass by you on breaks, despite the judge’s admonishment against any communication. You will find yourself becoming an amateur lawyer attempting to understand why the judge is ruling the way he is, and trying to understand the strategy of the witnesses. After all, what else can you do other than be nervous and angry, since the defense will not pay you your due.

Witness after witness will take the stand. Some will help your case; others will hurt it. Both sides will introduce pictures, medical records, and even big blowups of your body parts to the jury, some quite embarrassing. You will be cross-examined by the defense lawyer, and you will try to be smarter than him or her, only to be caught in inconsistencies and exaggerations. That’s right - you will not be the star that convinces the jurors that you deserve compensation. It doesn’t work like that. The jurors will evaluate all of the evidence to attempt to reach a fair verdict, not just a verdict for your side.

Of course, a strong trial lawyer will do all that he can to persuade the jurors, and you will naturally feel the weight of good lawyer’s intellect and powers of persuasion. You will need to believe in your lawyer and what he or she is doing, like watching a well-produced and well-directed play, says Alan Ripka, Esq.

The trial can take days or even weeks. There may be many witnesses or few. There may be an abundance of evidence or hardly any at all. The jurors, six in a civil case or twelve in a criminal case, and all strangers, will decide your fate. The most nerve racking part of the trial process is leaving all the work in the hands of the decision makers that you just laid eyes on. And besides appealing a verdict against you, there is nothing you do or say after the verdict to convince anybody to decide differently once it is done.

Many lawyers believe a fair settlement, one that neither side is happy with, is always better than a trial with an unknown outcome. However, if the defendant wants to play hardball with you, your author believes that you need to hit the ball and show them you are not afraid. Many cases settle before, during, and after trial. In order to be in the right position to begin with, you must have a lawyer that has tried many cases, is willing to move forward without a blink, and stand firm by your side. Your author, Alan Ripka, Esq. will be there. Always!

The Importance of Jury Selection

Jury selection is an important factor in winning your trial. A jury can decide against you despite all of the facts being in your favor. The reality is, you better ask the tough questions in order to find out if a potential juror will be accepting and hopefully sympathetic to your position. Alan Ripka, Esquire, wants to highlight the word “accepting” because if you think that a juror will be fair for your trial, you should pack up your prosecution bag and take up something else.

Most people want to believe, ideally, that they can be fair - that they cannot possibly be one of those “unfair, biased people,” and therein lies your greatest problem. How does one get to the core of the problem when the apple does not believe it needs to be bitten into? It is like convincing the ocean that it’s not really blue in color, but that the color is only a reflection. You are a lawyer practicing psychology while playing devil’s advocate.

If you go into the voir dire process with the realistic belief that every single person in the room is unfair, prejudiced, biased, sexist, and does not care whatsoever about your case, you might have a chance of picking a jury that "may be accepting" of your position.

A trial lawyer during jury selection MUST find a way to create a relationship with the potential juror so that a bond or trust is born in the selection’s infancy. A genuine connection must be established between the trial lawyer and the potential juror in order to invoke a candid conversation between them. The object is to weed out those that you can NEVER have a chance with and keep those who "may be accepting," because that is the best you are going to get! That’s right - face the facts and don’t drink the "duty bound to be fair juror " Kool-Aid if you want a chance to win.

If nothing else, be direct. Confront people’s preconceived notions and prior experiences right away. Do not subscribe to the notion that if you don’t ask, the answer cannot hurt you. People’s hidden thoughts, the unspoken ones, are the ones that will thrash you in the form of an adverse verdict. I realize that it is difficult to talk about issues that hurt your position, but if you embrace the issue as a fair issue, you will gain credibility. Then, when you explain and discuss why their position is not applicable in your case, or when you ask how they would feel if a juror decided the case before the trial if they were the litigants, the tide begins to turn.

A trial lawyer can feel when rational arguments are making sense to potential jurors and capitalizes on this. This is done by appealing to the jurors’ conscience and discussing what they would expect from a juror if they were a plaintiff or a defendant. It is extremely helpful to point out decisions from past juries that everyone believes were unjust. These decisions that were made contrary to the evidence is the very wrong that they will remember and hope to avoid.

In the end, establishing a relationship with the jurors, working with their preconceived notions and prejudices, and appealing to jurors’ conscience will not guarantee jurors who will render a verdict in your favor. However, it will increase the probability that the jurors find consistently with what the evidence shows, says Alan Ripka, Esquire.

Forklift Collapse Kills One Worker, Seriously Injures Another

A forklift carrying a car at a New Jersey auto salvage business collapsed, crushing one worker to death and seriously injuring another who tried to help, according to an article on NorthJersey.com.

The accident happened this morning at Beji Dismantling operated by Beji, LLC, an auto parts salvage business at 251 Presidential Boulevard in Paterson, NJ.

Paterson police responded to a 9:25 a.m. call from the shop, finding one worker crushed beneath a Mercury automobile whom they pronounced dead at the scene.

Emergency services transported another worker who suffered injuries while trying to rescue his co-worker to St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center.

“The employee crushed was under the vehicle,” Paterson Det. Lt. Ron Humphrey told NorthJersey.com. “The forklift gave way.”

A representative from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is investigating the accident.

According to OSHA, powered industrial truck (forklift) accidents cause approximately 100 fatalities and 36,340 serious injuries annually.

Weather and Careless Driving Blamed for 69 Car Pileup

Arizona state officials say bad weather and driver carelessness resulted in multiple crashes involving 69 vehicles over a 2.5-mile stretch of interstate in Phoenix.

A sudden monsoon about 6:30 pm on Saturday surprised motorists on Interstate 10 near downtown Phoenix.

"The storm hit hard, hit fast and caught a lot of drivers by surprise," Bob Bailey, Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesperson, told CBS News. "The collisions began in the far right side of the roadway near the 7th Street exit ramp and this thing kind of perpetuated itself, enveloping the whole roadway."

He also blamed the mass of collisions on drivers traveling too fast and not leaving enough distance between vehicles.

Paramedics treated between 30 and 40 injured people at the scene and transported seven others to the hospital.

The accidents closed the highway for 3.5 hours while police cleared the scene.

The Associated Press reports that tow trucks had to tow at least half of the accident vehicles away.

Some motorists remained at the scene for hours while the city arranged transportation to get them home. Officials provided air-conditioned city buses to accommodate the people during the wait and handed out snacks and water.

NJ Bill would require DUI Testing for Drivers in Fatal or Serious Injury Motor Vehicle Accidents

A bill in the New Jersey legislature would require the testing of drivers involved in motor vehicle accidents resulting in fatalities or serious injures for alcohol and drug use.

Assembly Bill No. A651 requires New Jersey police officers to obtain a breath or blood sample of any motor vehicle driver involved in an accident resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The bill defines serious bodily injury as an injury with a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.
Police can currently only test drivers for drug or alcohol use due to evidence or a clear-cut suspicion that the driver was driving under the influence.

Under the bill, a driver would be deemed to have given consent to the taking of a blood sample just as they currently are deemed to have given consent to a breath test. If a driver refuses to submit to the testing, they would be subject to the same penalties as a person convicted of refusal in relation to a drunk-driving charge under R.S.39:4-50, with fines up to $1000 and driver’s license suspension for as long as two years.

Democratic Assemblymen Paul Moriarty and Nelson Albano are the primary sponsors of the bill.

“Testing for the influence of drugs or alcohol at the scene of an accident makes common sense," Albano told the Associated Press. "Not only would police be able to determine whether a driver was under the influence, they would be able to ensure that impaired drivers don’t get back behind the wheel and will face serious charges."

According to a news release, the death of Anthony J. Farrace, 17, a passenger in a 2007 Southampton Township accident inspired the bill. After the accident, police tested Farrace’s body for the presence of alcohol or drugs, but the driver of the vehicle was not required to submit to any such testing. Police later cited the driver for careless driving, an offense which only carried a $200 ticket and six-month license suspension.

Testing drivers for potential alcohol or drug use should be the rule when accidents result in death or serious injuries, not the exception," Moriarty told the Associated Press.

$13 Million Settlement to Cleanup Asbestos, Metals and Toxins at Mass. Superfund Site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice Department announced today that they reached a $13 million settlement with four parties to clean up the contaminated Blackburn and Union Privileges Superfund Site in Walpole, Mass.

Once known as The Blackburn Privilege and The Union Factory Privilege, the site covers approximately 30 acres, most of which is residential, and has been in use since the 1600’s. In the 17th and 18th centuries, various industrial and commercial operations used hazardous substances such as chromium, arsenic and mercury. From 1915 to 1937, the crushing of raw asbestos and manufacturing of asbestos brake linings took place and later various cotton and fabric production processes used caustic solutions.

These operations caused the contamination of soils, sediment and groundwater at the site with inorganic chemicals, including asbestos, lead, arsenic and nickel, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). Ingesting or coming into direct contact with contaminated soils, sediments, or groundwater poses a health risk.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a pile of asbestos waste remained uncovered at the site until 1986, when the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) received a complaint that asbestos was present on the site. Testing has found asbestos in surface waters and sediments sampled downstream of the site and in groundwater sampled from on-site and off-site monitoring wells. The mechanism for asbestos migration from the site is unknown.

Municipal wells located within 4 miles of the site draw water from the School Meadow Brook/Mine Brook aquifer and supply drinking water to approximately 19,500 people of the Town of Walpole. The nearest well is located within 1 mile of the site. The site lies within the boundaries of the Neponset River drainage basin, which bounds the southern portion of the site.

While some limited cleanup measures took place in the early 1990’s, the site has been on the National Priorities List in 1994.
The parties involved in the settlement include former owners and operators W.R. Grace & Co.-Conn. and Tyco Healthcare Group; and current owners BIM Investment Corp. and Shaffer Realty Nominee Trust.

Under the settlement, the four parties will, among other things:

• Excavate and dredge contaminated soil and sediment;
• Treat contaminated groundwater that poses a risk to surface waters;
• Establish land use restrictions for the site; and
• Perform long-term monitoring of soils, sediment and groundwater. 
• Maintain a cap and culvert, and perform engineering studies needed to ensure the long-term integrity of the structures

“EPA is pleased that, if approved, this settlement will re-enforce the ‘polluter pays’ principle that is central to the Superfund program by obtaining a commitment for millions of dollars in cleanup work from the responsible parties at this Site,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.