Miami Injury Lawyer Blawg

Bicycle accidents are often caused by defective design and defective manufacturing. Recently, Trek bicycle components have come under criticism for breaking.

Now, Trek is recalling approximately 27,000 bicycles because of faulty seat clamp bolts on affected seat posts. The bolt can break, which poses an obvious potential for harm. Four injuries have been reported due to the issue.

The bikes affected are 2012 model year.

Models include:
Trek 7.2 FX, 7.3 FX, 7.4 FX, and 7.5 FX, as well as District and 9th District WSD, Livestrong and Disc models.

Consumers should check the SKU number stamped on the bottom bracket. If the last two numbers are "12" you may have an affected bike and should contact a local Trek dealer immediately.

Continue reading "After 4 Injuries Trek Recalls Bicycles" »

Yaroslav Kosov, 18, the Florida Panthers 2011 fifth-round pick (124th overall) was injured in a car accident in Russia.

Kosov, apparently sustained a closed head injury and back injuries. The rehabilitation will take several months.

Continue reading "Florida Panther Yaroslav Kosov Injured In Car Accident " »

The M.R.I. was long thought to be an invaluable diagnostic tool. However, scans are easily misinterpreted and can result in misdiagnoses leading to unnecessary or even harmful treatments. That being said, The M.R.I. is only as good as the person reading the test, and should only be a one part of the final diagnosis. To that end, the doctor's physical examination and the patient's complaints should all be considered in the ultimate diagnosis and recommended treatment options.

As reported by the New York times, Dr. James Andrews, the go-to sports medicine orthopedist wanted to test his suspicion that M.R.I.'s, might be a bit misleading. So he scanned the shoulders of 31 perfectly healthy professional baseball pitchers. As a brief aside, Dr. Andrews signed an exclusive 10-year, $200 million deal with the New York Yankees that will prohibit him from operating on the elbows, shoulders and knees of any athlete not in the Yankee organization.

The pitchers scanned were not injured and had no pain. But the M.R.I.'s found abnormal shoulder cartilage in 90 percent of them and abnormal rotator cuff tendons in 87 percent. "If you want an excuse to operate on a pitcher's throwing shoulder, just get an M.R.I.," Dr. Andrews says. I would argue that Dr. Andrews never performed surgery on a pitcher's throwing shoulder solely on the basis of an MRI study.

He and other eminent sports medicine specialists are taking a stand against what they see as the vast overuse of magnetic resonance imaging in their specialty.

M.R.I.'s can be invaluable in certain situations -- finding serious problems like tumors or helping distinguish between competing diagnoses that fit a patient's history and symptoms. They also can make money for doctors who own their own machines. And they can please sports medicine patients, who often expect a scan.

"It is very rare for an M.R.I. to come back with the words 'normal study,' " said Dr. Christopher DiGiovanni, a professor of orthopedics and a sports medicine specialist at Brown University. "I can't tell you the last time I've seen it."

In sports medicine, where injuries are typically torn muscles or tendons or narrow cracks in bones, specialists like Dr. Andrews and Dr. DiGiovanni say M.R.I.'s often are not needed -- they usually can figure out what is wrong with just a careful medical history, a physical exam and, sometimes, a simple X-ray.

M.R.I.'s are not the only scans that are overused in medicine but, in sports medicine, where many injuries involve soft tissues like muscles and tendons, they rise to the fore.

In fact, one prominent orthopedist, Dr. Sigvard T. Hansen, Jr., a professor of orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington, says he pretty much spurns such scans altogether because they so rarely provide useful information about the patients he sees -- those with injuries to the foot and ankle.

"I see 300 or 400 new patients a year," Dr. Hansen says. "Out of them, there might be one that has something confusing and might need a scan."

The price, which medical facilities are reluctant to reveal, depends on where the scan is done and what is being scanned. One academic medical center charges $1,721 for an M.R.I. of the knee to look for a torn ligament. The doctor who interprets the scan gets $244. Doctors who own their own M.R.I. machines -- and many do -- can pocket both fees. Insurers pay less than the charges -- an average of $150 to the doctor and $960 to the facility.

Steve Ganobcik is something of a poster child for what can go wrong with the scans. A salesman who turns 44 on Saturday, Mr. Ganobcik twisted his knee skiing in Colorado in February. He continued skiing anyway and skied again the next two days as well, not wanting to cut his vacation short.

When he got home to Cleveland, his knee still bothered him, so he saw a sports medicine orthopedist. The doctor immediately ordered an M.R.I. and said it showed a torn anterior cruciate ligament, or A.C.L. It is one of the most common -- and most devastating -- sports injuries. The standard treatment is surgery, with a difficult recuperation lasting six months to a year.

Mr. Ganobcik looked into surgical techniques and decided he wanted a different one than the one his doctor offered. So he saw another sports medicine orthopedist who, agreeing that Mr. Ganobcik's ligament was torn, scheduled the operation.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ganobcik heard that Dr. Freddie H. Fu, chairman of the division of sports medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, had what might be an even better technique, so he went to see him.

To Mr. Ganobcik's surprise, Dr. Fu told him his ligament was not torn after all. His pain was from a fracture in a long bone in the lower leg that the other doctors had also noticed was broken. An M.R.I. at the University of Pittsburgh confirmed it, showing a perfectly normal A.C.L. (Dr. Fu adds that Mr. Ganobcik's original scans had an image that was ambiguous. He wanted a better one, to see if Mr. Ganobcik's ligament had been partly torn and was healing or had never been torn at all. He would not need surgery with a partial tear, but he would need more careful recuperation.)

Dr. Fu's suspicions were raised by Mr. Ganobcik's story. He could never have continued skiing with a torn A.C.L. The diagnosis "made no sense," Dr. Fu said, and that, illustrates a common problem: relying on an M.R.I. instead of a history and an exam, as I noted at the beginning of this story

Continue reading "An M.R.I. is Only One Piece Of The Puzzle" »

Alba Chavez arrived at Aventura Hospital and Medical Center for an outpatient laparoscopic procedure on Dec. 8, 2006. Following the gallbladder surgery Alba Chavez had abdominal pain, and doctors prescribed morphine and hydromorphone. Alba was given the pain medication and left alone when she was transferred between hospital units. Alba stopped breathing and suffered a hypoxic brain injury, which is caused by reduced supply of oxygen to the brain.

Cerebral hypoxia is typically grouped into four categories depending on the severity and location of the brain's oxygen deprivation:

1. Diffuse cerebral hypoxia. A mild to moderate impairment of brain function due to low oxygen levels in the blood.

2. Focal cerebral ischemia; is a stroke occurring in a localized area that can either be acute (sudden onset)and/ or transient (of short duration). This may be due to a variety of medical conditions such as an aneuryrsm which causes a hemorrhagic stroke, or an occlusion occurring in the affected blood vessel/s due to a thrombus (thrombotic stroke) or embolus (embolic stroke). Focal cerebral ischemia constitutes a large majority of the clinical cases in stroke pathology with the infarct usually occurring in the middle cerebral artery (MCA).

3. Global cerebral ischemia. A complete stoppage of blood flow to the brain.

4. Massive Cerebral infarction; is a "stroke", caused by complete oxygen deprivation due to an interference in cerebral blood flow which affects multiple areas of the brain.

Prolonged hypoxia induces neuronal cell death via apoptosis resulting in a hypoxic brain injury.

In the case of Alba Chavez, she went into a coma for 45 days. She did wake up, but she woke up as a quadriplegic. Chavez is confined to a wheelchair and has trouble speaking

The Plaintiff's alleged that hospital nurses should not have left Chavez alone after surgery. As reported by the Daily Business Review, the family claimed the nurses were irresponsible when a heavily drugged Chavez was stripped of monitors and supplemental oxygen for the transfer. The allegation that they were irresponsible-is that they fell below the standard of care. In a Medical Malpractice Case allegations that treatment was not appropriate(below Standard of Care) must be presented by medical experts. In this case, testimony from a neurologist, nurse, pulmonologist and toxicologist was presented to argue Chavez was alone for seven to 10 minutes. In that time, she lost consciousness and stopped breathing.

Jurors reached their verdict Sept. 23, nearly three years after the family filed its negligence suit against the hospital, and sided with the family. The jury awarded $5.85 million in medical expenses and $1.5 million for pain and suffering. Winnie Santiago, Alba's minor daughter was awarded $560,000 the loss of her mother's services.

The hospital filed motions for a new trial and to set aside or amend the final judgment.

Personal Injury Lawyers can tell you the number of accident cases caused by distracted driving continue to rise.

A new study suggests that" texting while driving doubles a driver's reaction time," Christine Yager, who led the study at Texas A&M University's Texas Transportation Institute, told Reuters on Wednesday.

As reported by Reuters news, 42 drivers between the ages of 16 and 54 drove on an 11-mile test track course while sending or receiving text messages, and drove it again while focusing completely on the road.

Drivers were asked to stop when they saw a flashing yellow light, and their reaction times were recorded, Yager said.

The typical time it took a driver who was not texting to respond to the flashing light was one to two seconds. But when the driver was texting, the reaction time extended to three to four seconds, and the texting motorist was 11 times more likely to miss the flashing light altogether.

Yager said the reaction time was the same whether the driver was typing a message or reading one.

"The act of reading and writing a text message are equally impairing and equally dangerous," she said.

Yager said the research differed from previous studies in that it involved participants driving actual vehicles, not driving simulators.

A previous well-respected study done on a lab simulator showed drivers reacted in less than one second when they were not texting and to stimulus while texting in 1-2 seconds, Yager said. The 3-4 second lag time in the actual driving study is significant because in that period at highway speeds one can travel the length of a football field, she said.

Institute spokesman Rick Davenport said texting drivers were less able to stay in their lane and unable to maintain a constant speed.

In addition, texting drivers were more likely to swerve in their lane, Yager said.

"Even though we had participants drive at 30 miles an hour with very wide lanes on the test track, we still had many close calls," she said.

"We had participants strike barrels, and it is very scary to think that this is happening on our public roadways."

Yager said the study findings extend to other driving distractions, such as checking e-mail and Facebook.

U.S. Transportation Department statistics indicate distracted driving contributes to as much as 20 percent of all fatal crashes, and that cell phones are the primary source of driver distractions.

At least one in five motorists has admitted to texting while driving, according to the department.

Text messaging while driving is banned in 34 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. An additional seven states ban texting while driving for some motorists, such as those under 18 or bus drivers. In addition, many cities and counties have banned texting while driving.

Continue reading "New Study Shows Distracted Driving Is Even More Serious Than We Thought" »

A detached retina occurs when the retina is pulled or falls away from its normal position. The retina is a light-sensitive layer of tissue that lines the back of the eye. It converts visual images into nerve impulses in the brain that allow us to see.

During an automobile accident, the forces of the crash can put pressure on a number of internal organs causing bleeding, pain and chronic disabilities. When the head strikes a blunt object such as a steering wheel or window, a tear or break in the retina can occur. These tears can lead to retinal detachment and if left untreated, can cause permanent damage to the eye and even blindness.

A retinal detachment is painless. If you have any of these symptoms, contact an eye doctor immediately:

Sudden appearance or increase in the number of "floaters," which are shapes that float in the eye and are seen in the field of vision
Brief flashes of light in the eye
Loss of the eye's central or peripheral field of vision
A curtain appears to fall over part of the visual field
Sudden changes or blurring of vision

There are two types of surgical procedures for treating a Retinal Detachment:

Vitrectomy-- Which is the surgical removal of vitreous fluid that is pulling on the retina and causing detachment

Scleral buckle--the surgical placement of a flexible band or band(s) around the eye.

See the video below:

Almost all circumcisions in the U.S. are performed with a Mogen clamp, a Gomco clamp or a device called the Plastibell. However, the safety of these devices is being called into question, as is the skill of the doctors in using these devices.

As reported in The Los Angeles times Melanie Hall sued both the doctor and the distributor of the Mogen clamp he had used to circumcise her now 8-year-old son, Terrel, after the doctor had cut off most of the tip of Terrel's penis. While the claim for Medical Malpractice against the physician was dismissed, Miltex Inc. and its parent company, Integra Life Sciences Holding Corp., agreed this summer to a $4.6-million settlement.

The Mogen clamp's name derives from the Hebrew word "magain," or shield. It was invented in 1954 by Rabbi Harry Bronstein, a Brooklyn mohel who wanted to standardize circumcision equipment then in use by both doctors and mohels without medical training who perform the procedure in private homes and other locations. A user first loosens the foreskin, then pulls it through the clamp and clips it off with a single cut.

See the video of a circumcision with the clamp:

There have been numerous reports in recent years of patients being injured by the Mogen clamp, which is much less popular than the other two types of circumcision devices, which are two-part systems that protect the tip of the penis.

As far back as August 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public health notice about the Mogen and Gomco clamps after receiving about 20 injury reports a year since 1996, including lacerations, hemorrhaging, penile amputation and urethral damage. Instead of recalling the devices, the FDA advised users to make sure they were using the correct size Mogen clamp and that the space between the clamp's jaws met manufacturer's specifications. The agency also cautioned against using replacement parts on the Gomco clamp, which led it to malfunction.

But complications continued. In the 11 years between the FDA warnings and the Hall settlement, the agency has received 139 additional reports of problems related to circumcision clamps, including 51 injuries, said spokeswoman Amanda Sena. Twenty-one of those reports were related to Mogen clamps, all but one of which involved injuries.

Miltex, one of several Mogen clamp manufacturers, stopped distributing the devices in 1994. "Although no obvious defect has been found with the clamp's design or manufacturing we have concerns over the possible mishandling of the instrument by practitioners and our inability to ensure the instrument's proper use," Miltex's then-president Saul Kleinkramer wrote in a letter announcing the decision.

But some of its devices are still in use. That troubles some medical experts, who say the Mogen clamp, unlike others, has a critical design flaw: It does not allow doctors or mohels to see what they are cutting.

In 2000, Miltex reached a confidential settlement with a North Hollywood couple whose newborn was injured during circumcision. Last year, a New York judge awarded $10.8 million in damages to a Florida couple whose son lost the head of his penis when he was circumcised with a Mogen clamp. The maker of that device, Mogen Circumcision Instruments of New York, already was in default on a $7.5-million judgment in Massachusetts.

Only about 10% to 20% of doctors use the Mogen clamp, according to Dr. David Tomlinson, who teaches family medicine at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and serves as the World Health Organization's chief expert on circumcision. But the clamp is popular with mohels because some orthodox Jews recognize only circumcisions performed with devices based on the traditional design, according to Dr. Fred R. Kogen, a mohel in Los Angeles.

Kogen has performed circumcisions with the Mogen, the Gomco and the Plastibell. He said he prefers the Mogen, which he has used on more than 7,000 babies, including his son.

With the Mogen clamp, a circumcision requires just one cut and is over in minutes. The Gomco and Plastibell devices require doctors to make multiple incisions, which takes more time and causes more pain, according to studies cited in the April issue of the Journal of Family Practice.

"In my mind, it was less traumatic to the child" to use the Mogen clamp, Kogen said. "I felt comfortable with it."

Continue reading "Circumcision Clamps Lead To Medical Malpractice and Product Liability Claims" »