Wisconsin Personal Injury Blog

Sales of Durom Cup Hip Socket Suspended

David Lowe — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:24:11 GMT

Zimmer Holdings has suspended sales of its Durom cup hip socket, used in hip replacement surgery. Orthopedic surgeons have reportedly complained that the component fails at a high rate, while Zimmer contends that the problem stems from the surgeons' need for specialized training to implant the component. The Durom cup hip socket has reportedly been implanted in more than 12,000 patients over the past two years. The early failure of the component has apparently resulted in hundreds of patients having to undergo another surgery to replace the component. It seems likely that many more failures will be recognized now that the device has been recalled. Patients who are forced to undergo revision surgery due to a defective device would be well advised to seek legal counsel to obtain compensation for the cost of the second surgery and the pain and suffering that the ordeal has caused.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Houston Crane Collapse Raises Familiar Questions

David Lowe — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:01:58 GMT

Today's tragic deaths of four workers in the Houston crane collapse at an oil refinery owned by LyondellBasell comes nine years and four days after Milwaukee's Miller Park crane accident, where three ironworkers died in the collapse of a mobile crane during the lift of a 450-ton steel assembly that was to be part of the baseball stadium's retractable roof. I had the privilege to represent one of the ironworker widows in the Milwaukee accident, and today's news brings back memories of that catastrophe, as well as the years of litigation that followed.

Both accidents involved large mobile cranes cable of lifting huge loads and traveling a distance before depositing the load. The crane involved this time was leased from Deep South Crane & Rigging.

The facts are quite uncertain at this time, just hours after the collapse. OSHA is investigating.

Deep South Crane has promised cooperation with the investigating authorities.

News reports indicate that the crane was not scheduled to perform any lifts today, so it is unclear whether the machine was performing a lift or toppled for some other reason. Witnesses are saying that an alarm was sounding, and that workers were scrambling to get out of the way when the crane came down. These heavy cranes are often equipped with alarms to warn when the crane tilts beyond a set tolerance, so this may be what the witnesses heard.

For the families of the four workers killed, and the six other workers who were reportedly injured, the questions will requires a root cause analysis to understand why the crane failed: Was it a problem of manufacturer design, flawed assembly at the site, machine operator error, insufficient ground preparation, weather conditions or something else? Was the accident was caused by acts of fellow workers or by employees of a different employer, thus allowing a tort claim outside the worker compensation system? All of these questions were raised by the Milwaukee accident, and I suspect that similar questions will be raised in Houston.

Hopefully, whatever lessons are learned here will be used to promote safety in work environments involving these huge machines.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Boy Fleeing Rottweiller Suffers Head Injury

David Lowe — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:30:09 GMT

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel website is reporting that a 17-year-old boy fleeing a Rottweiller dog suffered a fractured skull Monday night after he ran into a tree.

Police are reporting that the boy was trying to escape from the dog when it broke free from its chain and the teen ran into a tree, fell to the ground and hit his head, fracturing his skull and suffered bleeding in his brain.

The dog did not bite the victim, but its owner was cited for failing to keep the dog was not kept behind a fence, police said.

Wisconsin's dog bite statute, 174.02, Wis.Stats., imposes liability on the owner of a dog "for the full amount of damages caused by the dog injuring or causing injury to a person." Thus, even though the dog did not bite or touch the victim, if the dog causes the injury, as the dog seems to have done here, the owner is liable. And if the dog has attacked before and its owner was notified of the prior attack, the dog bite statute provides for an award of double damages to the victim. The statute is designed to discourage owners from harboring dogs having dangerous propensities to attack or bite.

A victim such as the teen injured here would do well to consult a personal injury attorney to explore compensation for an incident like this.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Failure to Yield Leads to Death of Racine County Motorcyclist

David Lowe — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:51:36 GMT

A 40 year old motorcyclist was killed Saturday when a truck pulling a boat trailer pulled out from a driveway into his path. The motorcyclist was identified by the Racine County Sheriff's department as Frank T. Newer.

Newer was traveling north on Highway 75north of Highway 11 in the Town of Dover when the accident occurred.

It appears that the truck failed to yield the right of way. The rules of the road require that a truck entering a highway from a driveway must yield to traffic on the highway.

With the warm weather finallyupon us here in Wisconsin, the roadways are being shared by all manner of vehicles. Let's keep our eyes open and look for our fellow motorists.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Distracted Truck Driver Rear Ends School Bus, Sending 14 Children To Area Hospitals

David Lowe — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:23:09 GMT

A semi collided with a school bus unloading children on Highway 50 in Kenosha County on Friday afternoon, May 23, 2008, sending at least 14 children and two adults to hospitals, with four of the children suffering serious injuries, and the truck driver listed in critical condition. The 14 children on the bus were from Wheatland Center School.

It seems that the semi never braked before the accident, and Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth was quoted as saying that the semi driver may have been distracted by drinking a can of soda as the semi approached a mild rise in the highway grade at the accident location.

A photo of the accident scene depicts a trailer with a Wisconsin Logistics, Inc. logo.

Until the investigation is concluded, it is unclear whether the driver's drinking from his beverage can caused his distraction, but there had to have been something distracting him if the semi never braked. People do a lot of stupid stuff people do while driving. I handled a case a couple years ago where a driver was using a spoon to eat a bowl of cereal with milk and pulled out from a stop sign into the path of a motorcycllist, who sustained serious injuries. Cell phone use continues to distract drivers. iPods with earphones are another problem, depriving drivers of one the senses that keep them aware of their surroundings. School bus accidents draw attention to these issues. I expect that this one will prompt a serious look at truck driver education and policies and procedures to forbid truck drivers from engaging in distracting activities.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Carbon Nanotubes Dangerous Like Asbestos

Paul Jacquart — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:25:00 GMT

A study in Nature Nanotechnology, a science journal, indicates that carbon nanotubes may present asbestos-like dangers to people exposed to them, reports the Associated Press. Carbon nanotubes are microscopically small rolled pipes of graphite which, due to their relative strength and miniscule size, are being explored for a wide range of uses in electronics and medicine. The article explains though that the recent study seems to show the tubes mimic the dangers of asbestos in laboratory mice:

Researchers with British institutes and the U.S.-based Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies injected mice with asbestos and with commercial samples of carbon nanotubes of varying sizes. When they examined the lining of the rodents' abdominal cavities, the researchers observed that longer nanotubes behaved like asbestos, provoking inflammation and lesions.

The article explains that a previous study in Japan also showed that when nanotubes were injected into mice, they caused mesothelioma, like asbestos. While the study apparently is not conclusive about the dangers nanotubes may present to humans, it raises awareness of the potential dangers associated with the tiny particles for those designing products containing them and for employers whose employees are exposed to them in the workplace. Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Jacquart

How Big Is Your Umbrella?

David Lowe — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:32:27 GMT

Many car accident victims come to my office with an accident report in their hands revealing that the driver at fault had insufficient or no liability insurance. The injured victim usually asks: "How can these people drive around without adequate insurance limits?" But when I ask to see the victim's insurance policy, we usually learn that the victim also has the same inadequate auto liability coverage limits, with inadequate uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. As a result, the coverage is frequently insufficient provide fair compensation for the huge medical bills, lost wages, and the victim's pain, suffering and disability.

"No problem, I have an umbrella policy", the accident victim declares. But when we check their umbrella insurance policy, we frequently learn that their umbrella does not apply to their uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage; it only provides additional protection for their own negligent driving.

A separate premium must be paid to link the umbrella coverage to the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. It is usually less than $500 for this endorsement. A recent court case made clear that a Wisconsin auto insurance company must provide its customers with notice of the right to purchase UM/UIM coverage with their umbrella policy, but the notice is often buried in language that goes unread when the renewal notice arrives in the mail and the policy is stored in a drawer. Good insurance agents know to advise their clients about paying for an endorsement or rider to their umbrella policy to get umbrella UM/UIM. But unfortunately, too many customers learn about the limits of umbrella coverage when it is too late.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

LASIK SURGERY WARNINGS INSUFFICIENT

Paul Jacquart — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:26:34 GMT

A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has recommended bolstering the warnings of the dangers of Lasik eye surgery, reports the Associated Press. The article explains that although Lasik surgery is successful with minimal side effects for the vast majority of patients, as many as one in four people who seek the surgery are not good candidates because their pupils are too large, or due to other issues. Nevertheless, doctors do not always reject such candidates and the patients suffer the side effects, which can be severe: worse vision, severe dry eye, glare and inability to drive at night. The FDA panel heard testimony from patients who suffered from halos, double and blurred vision and eye pain.

The advisory panel has recommended the following changes to the current warnings:

· Add photographs that illustrate what people suffering certain side effects actually see, such as the glare that can make oncoming headlights a huge "starburst" of light.

· Clarify how often patients suffer different side effects, such as dry eye. Some eye surgeons say 31 percent of Lasik patients have some degree of dry eye before surgery, and it worsens for about 5 percent afterward. Other studies say 48 percent of Lasik recipients suffer some degree of dry eye months later.

· Make more understandable the conditions that should disqualify someone from Lasik, such as large pupils.

· And spell out that anyone whose nearsightedness is fixed by Lasik is guaranteed to need reading glasses in middle age, something that might not be needed if they skip Lasik.

Hopefully, the increased warnings will make for a more informed consumer and result in fewer Lasik surgeries performed on poor candidates and a lower incidence of severe side effects.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Paul Jacquart

Tainted Heparin Deaths: Investigators Are Closing In On The Explanations

David Lowe — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:22:34 GMT

Update on the tainted heparin investigation:

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website has posted a report that gives an explanation for how the tainted heparin caused injury and deaths, and how it evaded detection:

Baxter International Inc.'s blood thinner heparin killed patients because a hard-to-detect contaminant produced toxins and triggered dangerously low blood pressure, researchers said. Two new reports show how the contaminant evaded detection with current screening approaches and caused a chemical cascade that ultimately led to the death of 81 patients. The contamination occurred within heparin's long and complex chains of sugars, a defect that wouldn't be found with tests that look for proteins, fats and genetic traces of outside substances. The raw ingredient for Baxter International's recalled heparin came from Waunakee-based Scientific Protein Laboratories, which in turn owns a Chinese factory - Changzhou SPL - and buys additional raw heparin from other Chinese suppliers.

United States health officials have identified oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) as the likely chemical culprit. Two scientific papers offer theories on the mechanism of the toxic changes. The FDA head has offered his speculation that the contaminated heparin was produced by economic fraud.

Meanwhile, it has been reported that the tainted Heparin reached 11 countries.

Despite Heparin manufacturer Baxter's CEO's declaration that not many heparin lawsuits are expected, these product liability cases would appear to have great merit. This is not an instance of a drug acting as expected, with certain known risks. This is a case of flaws in the manufacturing process. A drug that is released on the public with hidden dangers like this is defective and unreasonably dangerous. We'll be following this story.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe

Wisconsin Leads The Nation In Drunk Drivers

David Lowe — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:42:30 GMT

A national study reveals that Wisconsin leads the nation in drunk driving, based on admitted behavior in surveys conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

According to these government surveys about drinking and driving, more than 26% of Wisconsin adults 18 and older admitted that they had driven under the influence in the previous year.

Nationally, the report reveals that 15.1 percent of the nation's drivers age 18 and older drove under the influence of alcohol at least once in the past year. An estimated 30.5 million people aged 12 or older drove under the influence of alcohol at least once in the past year according to the report.

Driving under the influence ranged from a low of 9.5 percent in Utah, to highs of 26.4 percent in Wisconsin, 24.9 percent in North Dakota and 23.5 percent in Minnesota.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics show that there were almost 16,700 deaths in 2004 caused by drunk drivers, placing drunk driving and driving under the influence of illicit drugs as among the leading sources of preventable death by injury in the United States.

With the highest percentage of any state, Wisconsin placed more than 70% above the national average of 15.1%.

A story in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel focusing on the Wisconsin drunk driving statistics quotes Paul Moberg, senior scientist in the Population Health Institute at UW-Madison and co-author of a 2007 study on wisconsin's alcohol and drug use patterns comments:

"I think it's something to do with the culture of Wisconsin and what the shared expectations are of behavior," Moberg said. "People who come from other states remark on it. Any event you go to (in Wisconsin) has alcohol."

What can be done about this sorry achievement? Stronger criminal law enforcement is certainly one way. A civil lawsuit for compensatory and punitive damages is another tool. A recent Wisconsin Supreme Court case known as Strenke v. Hoger upheld a large punitive damages award against a five time drunk driver against an argument that a drunk driver should not be punished because he does not act with malice against his particular victim. In the end, though, we need a cultural change; one that sees drinking and driving as abhorrent.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by David Lowe