Boston Injury Lawyer Blog

A North Easton man who was seriously injured last Friday after a metal grate flew through his Toyota’s windshield while he was driving on route 128 is still in the hospital and is in stable but critical condition.

Pawel Swierzcynski, 39, had to be flow to Boston and taken to Brigham and Women’s Hospital after the accident that occurred early on the morning of July 27 in Westwood.

Massachusetts highway engineers are trying to figure out what caused the steel grate to become dislodged and fly into the car windshield.

Worried citizens had recently expressed concerns to that they were worried that one of the 24 grates on the storm drains could come loose. SPS New England, a contractor, had been ordered to secure all of them. Officials say they don’t know why the problem was not resolved.

The grates, also called steel catch basins, usually weigh approximately 250 pounds each and sometimes they are not held in place by anything but their own weight.

After the accident, MassHighway personnel spent the day welding the remaining grates in the area to prevent similar accident from occurring again. Construction had been taking place in the area, and officials are now going to be looking at other construction zones to see if a similar problem could occur.

Usually, catch basins are placed next to highways and roads. The basins were relocated to high-speed lanes because of the construction work in the area.

When a person is seriously injured because another party was negligent, the injured person may have grounds to file a personal injury claim.

Massachusetts law holds negligent persons responsible for the injured persons:

• Pain and suffering • Past, ongoing, and future medical and recovery costs • Any lost wages
• Expenses incurred to hire help while the injured person recovers • Rehabilitation costs • Property damage • Permanent disfigurement • Disability resulting from the accident • Other costs resulting from the accident
Man still hospitalized after accident, Easton Journal, August 2, 2007
Catch Basin Cover Crashes Windshield, Injures Driver, The Boston Channel, July 27, 2007
Repairs On Loose Grate Ordered Before Accident, WBZTV.com, July 27, 2007

Related Web Resource:

SPS New England
Continue reading

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says that the state has 27 steel truss bridges that are similarly designed to the Minneapolis Bridge that collapsed on Wednesday but that none of them are in danger of collapsing.

Authorities in Minnesota continue to search for survivors, following the collapse of the eight-lane interstate bridge that injured at least 79 people, trapped up to 50 motor vehicles in the Mississippi river, left at least 20 people still missing, and killed at least 4 people.

The bridge took less than 4 seconds to fall 60 feet into the river, and the water under the collapsed structure is about 7 feet deep. The river currents are pushing around blocks of pavement and twisted steel and making it very difficult for divers to search for survivors.

Investigators say they will try to determine the cause of the collapse. A 2001 study by the Minnesota Department of Transportation discovered several “fatigue problems” in the bridge and that certain areas, if cracked, could cause a collapse.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Bridge Inventory database determined that the Minnesota Bridge was structurally deficient and it received a 4 rating on a scale of 0 to 9, signifying deterioration and advanced section loss.

A school bus filled with over 50 children (ages 5 to 14) that had just finished a summer field trip was one of the many motor vehicles on the bridge when it fell. Eight of the children were hospitalized and treated for their personal injuries as a result of the bridge accident.

In Massachusetts, Governor Patrick has asked state transportation officials to look at bridge inspection records to make sure that there wasn’t anything about the conditions of the current 27 bridges to trigger alarm. In 2006, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced a plan to spend $1 billion over a five-year period to fix over 600 crumbling bridges in the state.

Massachusetts has 506 bridges that are “structurally deficient,” meaning that they received the same rating as the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. The rating means that a bridge is reaching the end of its lifespan.

After an accident as serious as a bridge collapse occurs, an investigation will have to take place to see who acted negligently or carelessly so that the accident occurred. The party or parties can be held liable by filing personal injury claims or wrongful death lawsuits against them. It is not uncommon for there to be more than one negligent party, and a good personal injury lawyer can help you file a successful injury claim.

Relatives hope, pray as river search continues, CNN.com, August 2, 2007
Patrick: 27 Mass. bridges similar in design to Minn. bridge, Boston.com, August 2, 2007

Related Web Resource:

National Bridge Inventory, U.S. Department of Transportation, IRE.org Continue reading

9-year-old Yaritza Diaz is not very responsive and is in critical condition at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston after being seriously injured in a boating accident involving two Sea-Doo watercrafts last May.

Carlos Lopez, 21, and Jose M. Cruz Delgado, 30, have both been charged with negligent driving of a watercraft, failing to follow inland navigation rules, failing to file a written boat accident report, and driving a personal watercraft in excess of headway speed.

Investigators say that Yaritza was riding on the back of the family’s Sea-doo, which had been driven by Lopez. Another Sea-doo, driven by Delgado, was driving on the same course but coming from the opposite direction. The two watercrafts collided. Yaritza was thrown at least 15 feet into the air and was struck by part of one of the vessels. She sustained serious head injuries in the crash.

An investigator on the case says that the vessels were moving at 31 mph, which is way over the 6mph speed limit.

Charges have been filed against the drivers of both vessels-one of them is a family friend of the Diaz family.

Antonia Diaz, the mother of Yaritza, believes that more severe charges should be made against the men. She thinks that misdemeanor charges are not enough to hold the men responsible for what happened to her daughter, who is unable to stand or sit on her own. Yaritza uses a feeding tube and has not been responsive to treatment.

Felony charges, however, can only be made if the two men had been drinking while driving a watercraft and if someone had been killed during the accident.

Yaritza will soon be transferred back to U Mass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester. Her mother says that a full-time nurse will be needed to take care of her daughter.

The CDC offers a number of 2005 boating accident statistics on its Web site, including the following:

*In 2005, the U.S. Coast Guard received reports for 4,969 boating incidents; 3,451 participants were reported injured and 697 died in boating incidents.

*Open motorboats were involved in 45% of all reported incidents and personal watercraft were involved in another 26%.

*The number of reported nonfatal injuries (1,007) involving personal watercraft (PWC), such as Jet Skis® and WaveRunners®, increased for the first time since 1996. PWC-related fatalities (65) also increased in 2005.

Watercraft drivers face charges in accident, Telegram.com, July 23, 2007
Boating Safety, Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Related Web Resources:

Sea-Doo

Your Resource Center for Boating Safety, USCGboating.org Continue reading

A jury in Suffolk County, Massachusetts has awarded William Dodge, a Boston resident, over $16 million in a personal injury lawsuit.

Dodge lost the ability to use his legs and arms in 2005 after being struck by an automobile while crossing the street in a crosswalk on Bridge Street close to the Salem commuter rail station. The defendant, Arda Tezel (the driver of the car that hit Dodge) was speeding when he struck the former executive chef. Dodge became a quadriplegic after sustaining a fractured spine in the crash. In addition to medical bills so far costing three quarters of a million dollars, he will need medical assistance for the remainder of his life.

The $16 million dollar plus verdict is one of the largest awards given by a jury to a personal injury plaintiff in Massachusetts this year. Dodge received $13,129,671. Interest already earned pushes the total to over $16 million. The jury announced the verdict in Suffolk Superior Court following an eight-day trial.