Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

September 15, 2010

Pew Report, Texas Conviction Highlight Distracted Driving Issues

In a sign of the ever-growing concern with distracted driving, a San Antonio bus driver has been convicted of reckless driving for texting while behind the wheel. His city bus, moving at 34 miles per hour according to police testimony, rear-ended an SUV in rush hour traffic, according to a report in the San Antonio Express-News. After watching footage from an on-board surveillance camera that showed the driver checking and sending texts on his cellphone for a full six minutes leading up to the June 2008 accident, Jurors returned a guilty verdict in just 10 minutes.

Prosecutors are requesting jail time for the driver (he could face up to 30 days), saying he should be made an example of the dangers of how reckless distracted driving is. Sentencing is scheduled to take place in November.

The conviction is significant, in part, because texting while behind the wheel is not, in and of itself, illegal in Texas, as it is here in Oregon. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety bus drivers are, legally speaking, perfectly free to text while they drive in Texas so long as no passengers age 17 or younger are on board (which presumably rules out texting by school bus operators, but leaves municipal bus drivers in the clear). Prosecutors, however, argued successfully that texting is so obviously dangerous an activity that doing so while driving fits any reasonable standard of reckless driving, according to the Express-News.

September 12, 2010

Oregon Child Injury Car Crash Kills Two

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The Oregonian reports that the 6-year-old survivor of a Labor Day weekend Oregon car crash is still hospitalized in serious condition, even as the operator of the car that caused the accident has been charged with a series of vehicular offenses by the district attorney in Klamath Falls.

The boy was seriously injured, and his great-grandparents killed, when 22-year-old Carrie Ames allegedly slammed into them in a head-on Oregon car crash. Ames and an 18-year old passenger in her car suffered only minor injuries.

According to The Oregonian, Ames has been charged “with two counts of first-degree manslaughter, driving under the influence of intoxicants, second-degree assault in connection with the 6-year-old’s injuries, and third-degree assault in connection with injuries “ to the teenage passenger in her own car.

September 9, 2010

Kansas Accident Shines Spotlight on Inflatable Rides

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Have you ever been to a carnival, or even a child’s birthday party and wondered just how safe those moonwalks, bouncy castles and other portable ‘rides’ are? According to a recent article in the Wichita Eagle, a Kansas court case looks set to bring those issues into focus.

According to the newspaper, the civil lawsuit was filed last month by the parents of a five-year-old boy who died after being thrown from an inflatable ride called King of the Hill. The newspaper describes this as being “designed like a large mattress – flat except for a bulge in the middle – and… surrounded by a 2-foot-high inflatable barrier.” Parents were allegedly told to place a child in the center of the ‘mattress’ and then to jump up and down themselves on the inflatable’s sides, causing the child to fly into the air. Having done this a few days earlier for the boy’s birthday party the five-year-old’s family returned to the same amusement park a few days later, using free passes they had received during the birthday celebration. On this second visit, however, the child was launched over the inflatable barrier. He landed head-first on the facility’s concrete floor, resulting in his death.

The parents also charge that the ride was “underinflated and unsupervised” and that the operator ignored the manufacturer’s recommendation that the ride was for children ages 8 and up.

September 6, 2010

Lower Speeds Can Lead to Lower Oregon Traffic Death Tolls

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A fascinating analysis published last week in the online Portland newspaper Enzyme PDX looks at the question of road fatalities – an issue as ever-present here in Portland as it is anywhere else. Specifically, the article compares Portland’s approach to road safety the approach used in Sweden. As the article notes, Portland’s population is just over one-third that of Sweden. But even though Sweden has a lot more people, it and Portland recorded around the same number of traffic fatalities in 2009 (355 for Sweden, 331 for Portland). This year, Portland’s streets have been deadlier – 198 fatalities so far in 2010 versus only 162 in Sweden. Again, that’s not Stockholm – it is all of Sweden.

Why, Enzyme PDX asks, do Sweden’s roads seem to be so much safer? The difference, the news site suggests, is essentially philosophical. Since 1997 Sweden’s traffic planners have worked on the assumption that they – the planners – are responsible for constantly modifying the traffic system in an effort to reduce or eliminate serious injuries and deaths while keeping traffic moving. This does not, they stress, relieve drivers of responsibility in any way. It does mean that the people who manage the transport system see lowering fatalities as just as much of a daily task as keeping the traffic moving.

Some of Sweden’s methods are well-known. The country has famously tough drunk driving laws and is equally famous for the zeal with which it enforces them. Less well known, and explored at length by Enzyme PDX is the effort the Swedes put into figuring out how best to help bikes, cars and pedestrians co-exist on the country’s streets and roads. Much of the time, that means forcing cars to slow down in areas where bikes and foot traffic are present. According to the website, speed limits in Swedish cities are a mere 18.6 miles per hour (30 km per hour) – because years of data analysis has shown that to be the optimal speed for overall safety in mixed-use areas.

September 3, 2010

Two Injured in 5 Vehicle Oregon Truck Crash

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The driver of a semi that set in motion a five-vehicle Oregon truck crash was cited at the scene of the accident, according to the Portland Tribune and other media reports.

The pile-up took place Tuesday morning in the eastbound lane of Highway 224. It began when a semi encountered slow-moving traffic but failed to slow down promptly. According to the Tribune, quoting police officials, the semi rear-ended a car in front of it, setting off a chain reaction as that car was, in turn, pushed into the next vehicle in line, and so on.

The 17-year old Milwaukie girl driving the first car – the one actually struck by the truck as it triggered the Portland car and truck accident – had to be cut out of the wreckage of her car by medics and fire personnel, the newspaper reports. She was taken to an area hospital with injuries described as “serious, but not life-threatening.” A passenger in one of the other vehicles involved in the Oregon truck accident was also treated for minor injuries.

September 1, 2010

Artificial Joint Manufacturer Settles Suit Over Marketing Claims

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The New York Times reported last week that Massachusetts has reached a settlement with the Stryker Corporation in a lawsuit alleging that the hip and knee manufacturer “marketed items without regulatory approval and misled health care providers about the use of its products.” The case focused specifically on Stryker’s OP-1 implant and OP-1 putty, according to the Times.

The $1.35 million settlement with Stryker’s biotech unit consists of a $325,000 civil penalty and $875,000 in funds to combat illegal marketing by other health-care related companies. The remainder is taken up by “legal fees and investigative costs.”

After the Massachusetts attorney general announced the settlement the company issued a statement emphasizing that under the terms of the agreement it has admitted no liability. It is hard, however, not to miss the product liability issues this may raise for Stryker in other states. Clearly, any Oregon patient suffering from the symptoms that were raised in the Massachusetts case would be well advised to consult with a Portland medical malpractice lawyer to consider best way to proceed.

August 30, 2010

Oregon HS Football Players felled by rare muscle condition

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Media reports over the last ten days have noted the strange case of nearly 20 Oregon high school football players taken ill after practice with a rare muscle disorder. According to the Associated Press three of the teens needed surgery “and 16 others were treated after suffering muscle damage following a fall camp.” The high schoolers are suffering from a rare condition known as “compartment syndrome” in which high levels of enzymes released after heavy exercise can, in some cases, lead to kidney failure. The constant repetition of the fact that the victims are football players, however, can obscure the fact that they are high schoolers – children, in the eyes of the law – and raises the question of what level of responsibility ought to be assigned to McMinnville High School and its football coach.

According to an article in The Oregonian, doctors familiar with the case say an intense combination of “high heat, dehydration and heavy exercise” may have led to the mass case of compartment syndrome. The doctors are also, however, “waiting for blood tests looking for the presence of creatine, a legal, loosely regulated and widely available bodybuilding supplement present in a number of weight-gain products that has been linked to an increased risk of sports-related injury.”

These Oregon child injuries, taking place at a high school sports practice, raise serious questions about the school’s responsibility – where it should start and where it should end. In particular, if creatine is found in the players’ blood that, in turn, would raise questions about whether the team’s coaches were aware of supplement use among their players and what, if anything, they may have done to warn against it.

August 28, 2010

Oregon Car Crash Driver Cited in Two States

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A car crash near the center of the Glenn Jackson Bridge earlier this week wrecked a semi-trailer and a Honda, sent two people to the hospital and ended with the driver of the Honda facing legal trouble in both Oregon and Washington.

The Oregon car and truck accident left 21-year old Ilya Anikin facing drunk driving charges in two states after crashing his vehicle on the bridge just inside the Oregon state line in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to The Oregonian. Police are still on the lookout for the driver of a red Pontiac alongside whom, they say, Anikin was driving recklessly as the two cars crossed the bridge headed from Washington into Oregon.

NWCN reports that the Oregon truck accident unfolded in an Oregon DOT workzone near the middle of the bridge when Anikin’s Honda swerved, hitting the semi “in the left rear axle, causing its two trailers to drive over, and somewhat flatten, the car.” The Oregonian reports that the trailers tipped over, smashing into the bridge’s center divider, blocking the road and spilling a huge amount of glue, which the truck was hauling (and which work crews struggled – successfully – to get cleaned up prior to the morning rush hour). The driver of the truck was uninjured, but Anikin and a passenger were treated at a local hospital, where Oregon police cited Anikin for DUII and reckless driving. Washington state police then arrested him and issued another, Washington State, DUI citation.

August 26, 2010

Study Finds Pets Can Be as Much of a Distraction for Drivers as Texting

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A study released last week by AAA seems certain to add to the debate surrounding distracted driving in Oregon and elsewhere around the nation. According to the survey, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, two out of every three dog owners “said they routinely drive while petting or playing with their dogs.”

Need I mention that this is not a very safe practice?

In fact, according to Fox News (reporting on the same AAA study), an unrestrained animal in a moving car poses the same degree of distracted driving danger as texting. Texting while driving is, of course, illegal in Oregon and a growing number of other states. That is somewhat ironic since, as the Tribune notes, “there are no state laws requiring drivers to buckle up their pets or prohibiting them from holding animals on their laps.” The paper quotes a AAA spokeswoman saying the auto club considers this situation “an increasingly big problem.”

August 22, 2010

Study Connects Tai Chi with Recovery from Fibromyalgia

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A new study from Tufts University, published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, has found what appears to be a link between the chronic pain disorder fibromyalgia and Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art that is most often practiced here in the United States for its health benefits rather than self-defense.

The focus on fibromyalgia makes the study especially interesting for Oregon accident victims seeking to recover from a car crash, bicycle crash or industrial accident. According to an analysis by the New York Times, the study “found that after 12 weeks of Tai Chi, patients with fibromyalgia… did significantly better in measurements of pain, fatigue, physical functioning, sleeplessness and depression than a comparable group given stretching exercises and wellness education.”

The paper notes that other medical studies have previously suggested that Tai Chi might hold benefits for other pain suffers, such as people with arthritis. These, however, are relatively well-understood maladies. Fibromyalgia is different. As the Times notes, fibromyalgia is “common”, but remains little-understood and is often difficult to treat. One doctor involved in the study is quoted by the Times attributing Tai Chi’s success with fibromyalgia victims to the discipline’s multiple components: “physical, psychological, social and spiritual.”