New York Accidents

Accidents are happening all over New York City pubic housing in their elevators. Since 2001, more than 300 residents and visitors to public housing properties have been injured in elevator accidents, with roughly 200 of those incidents involving the inner or outer doors of the elevator. The New York Times reports:

Dozens of those people received minor bumps and bruises, if any, and did not bother seeking medical attention. But more than 170 were treated at hospitals, by private physicians or by paramedics and firefighters for injuries to their hands, arms, feet, backs, heads, legs or knees, according to the agency and to the records. The records were released by the agency, the New York City Housing Authority, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request by The Times.

The records, though terse in their description of each accident, provide the first comprehensive picture of elevator accidents in public housing buildings, showing not just the frequency of injuries but also their financial costs.

An Auburn, New York man was killed over the weekend in a snowmobile accident after he lost control of the vehicle and was thrown from the vehicle. The victim, 19 year old John Tracy, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said the accident occurred at about 10:15 a.m. Saturday at the intersection of Flat Rock Road and Pitcher Road in the Town of Montague. Police said that efforts to resuscitate Tracy at the scene were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead after being transported to Lewis County General Hospital.

The accident was investigated by Lowville-based State Police. Police said they were assisted at the scene by members of Lewis County Search and Rescue, Lewis County Sheriff’s Department and New York State Forest Rangers.

Further investigation is ongoing in the accident of Continental flight 3407 in Buffalo, New York. The main question in the investigation seems to be whether or not icing was the main culprit in the accident, but no other reports of severe icing came from the area that night.

Investigators will ask pilots how much ice they saw when they flew around the Buffalo area on Thursday night, around the time a flight from Newark crashed and killed 50 people, but a member of the National Transportation Safety Board urged “caution about jumping to conclusions that it might be an icing incident.”

There were reports of moderate ice in the area, said the safety board member, Steven Chealander. But another Continental Airlines plane — also a Dash 8 Q400 — flew the same route, Newark to Buffalo, leaving 27 minutes after Flight 3407, and completed the trip without incident, he said.

A Corona, Queens man was recently killed in an accident that left him hit by one car, and then drug for over 20 miles beneath the undercarriage of another passing automobile. The accident occurred on 108th Street in Corona as the victim, Guido Carabajo, was crossing the street.

The police continued on Thursday to try to sort out the events leading up to the accident. Neither the driver who first struck Mr. Carabajo, Gustavo Acosta, nor the driver who dragged him, Manuel G. Lituma, was charged. Mr. Acosta had just driven through a green light at 51st Avenue when he struck Mr. Carabajo.

Mr. Lituma apparently never knew his van had picked up Mr. Carabajo until a pedestrian motioned for him to stop about 50 minutes and four highways later in Brighton Beach. The two men, both construction workers, lived just a few blocks apart in almost identical three-story red-brick buildings, and both came to Queens from Ecuador.

We reported a few weeks ago about an accident in New York City that killed a wastewater treatment plant employee after a conveyor belt fell on him and injured another worker in the process. The New York Law Blog also commented on the accident, and had this to say about the tragedy:

I have seen countless accidents where safety regulations are violated taking the life of an innocent worker.  What is most troubling to me is that these accidents could be prevented.  In this particular incident, Mr. Montello was killed when a conveyor belt collapsed on him at the Brooklyn Sewage Treatment Plant where he works.  This case is still under investigation and we will follow it in order to determine what happened.

A man who was hit by a New York City police officer in an accident was awarded $4.6 million in a settlement from the city. Gabriel Framowitz was injured in the accident after the NYPD officer struck him with his patrol car.

[Victim’s wife] Esther was not hurt, but her husband, then 57, fractured his leg and shoulder and suffered head wounds and brain damage when he was hit by a patrol car driven by Officer Byron Chow, says Herbert Subin, the Framowitzes’ lawyer.

According to trial transcripts, Chow in his deposition had blamed Framowitz, for the accident, claiming he ran out from between parked cars. But at trial, Chow, assigned to the 66th Precinct, admitted he was driving faster than he had previously claimed and didn’t see the victim until after he was struck.

An accident this morning in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York City has left one child dead, one seriously injured and 11 other people with minor injuries. The incident happened when a delivery truck backed into a group of people when it thought it was backing into a restaurant.  The New York Times City Room blog is keeping up with the story and following up with updates as they happen.

An accident at a New York City wastewater treatment plant killed a worker last week after a conveyor belt fell and crushed him. The worker and some of his colleagues were moving the conveyor belt when it buckled and trapped Gennaro Montello beneath it.

City Councilman Vincent J. Gentile, whose district includes Bay Ridge, visited the treatment plant on Friday. He called the accident “tragic” and praised Mr. Montello’s colleagues for rushing to his aid.

“It’s amazing with that kind of equipment that not more of them were hurt in the process,” Mr. Gentile said.

Mr. Gentile and Mr. Bloomberg each phoned Mr. Montello’s family to offer condolences.

“We typically only think of uniformed officers putting themselves on the line to serve the public,” the mayor said in his statement. “Today’s accident is a tragic reminder of how many others serve our city in challenging environments and how our city could not run without them. Mr. Montello was one of those unsung workers and we owe him, and his family, an unpayable debt of gratitude.”

A horrible construction accident happened this week when a Long Island man was crushed to death after a concrete foundation collapsed on him. The man, identified as Facundo Gonzalez, died at Southampton Hospital a short time later.

Police said the incident occurred at 2:58 p.m. at a construction site at 232 North Sea Rd., where the foundation collapsed — trapping Gonzalez beneath it. Police, paramedics and volunteers from the Southampton Fire Department responded to the scene and took about 10 minutes to dig under the collapsed concrete wall to free Gonzalez.

Officers and paramedics performed CPR and Gonzalez was transported by Southampton Village volunteer ambulance to Southampton Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to Lamison.

A construction contractor in Middletown, New York has constructed a helipad adjacent to the New York State police station in Monroe. The new helipad will allow accident victims from the area to be transported to trauma centers in a more efficient fashion.

David Tilton, a vice president of Eastern States Construction of Valley Cottage, called the work a gesture of gratitude for being allowed to store equipment beside the barracks during the 18-month-long bridge project. Monroe town officials had broached the idea, he said.

The pad took about a week to build and was done by early November. It measures 60 feet by 60 feet, the minimum size recommended for daytime helicopter landings, according to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla.

Westchester Medical, a top-level trauma center for the Hudson Valley, is the hospital that often dispatches helicopters to Orange County to collect seriously injured accident victims and other trauma patients. Its two-chopper squad is known as STAT Flight (STAT stands for stabilization, treatment and transportation).

Until now, helicopters have found various fields and parking lots on which to land in the Monroe area, using the formerly unpaved patch of land beside the state police barracks only in a pinch.