Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

A police report reprinted on the crime blotter page of the Corvallis Gazette-Times tells a story that will be all-too-familiar to victims of Oregon dog attacks: Someone gets bitten while walking through a park, and the dog’s owner tries to brush off the incident.

The good news in this case is that the victim, 52-year-old Doug Whippo, was not seriously injured. According to the police report, as reprinted in the paper, he was attacked in Willamette Park last weekend. The dog bit Whippo on his left tricep, but the police say the bite “did not break his skin or cause any damage to his clothes.”

The bad news comes from the reaction by the dog’s owner, who told police: “the dog had just been playing and was only a puppy.” The police report then dryly notes that this ‘puppy’ weighs 93 pounds. The owner added that “she had instantly grabbed the dog by the collar and apologized.” Obviously grabbing your dog by the collar after it attacks someone is a good thing for owners to do. So is apologizing. On the whole, however, it would be even better if owners paid closer attention to their animals to ensure that they did not wind up in this position in the first place.

Ultimately, Mr., Whippo was lucky. Many others are not. If you have been the victim of a Corvallis, Medford, Salem or Portland dog attack then you owe it to yourself to speak with an Oregon dog attack attorney as quickly as possible. Pet owners have an obligation to keep their animals under control to prevent them from becoming a public menace. The owner of the dog that attacked Whippo was cited for an unprovoked attack, but accountability should not end there.

In your struggle to make that accountability a reality a Portland dog attack attorney can be your most important ally.

Corvallis Gazette-Times: Crime Watch

In a scenario that reads like a scene from a movie or television show, a 19-year-old motorcycle rider was arrested Friday at the end of a high-speed chase near Salem. According to The Oregonian, the chase included a dramatic Oregon motorcycle and car crash that, miraculously, left no one injured.

The incident began when a Marion County sheriffs’ deputy saw a lone motorcyclist zoom past him at 112 miles per hour. According to the Salem Statesman-Journal, the officer chased the motorcyclist southbound on I-5 at speeds as high as 125 miles per hour but eventually relented for fear of endangering other drivers. When the biker tried to exit at Mission Street SE, however, he lost control of his motorcycle and was hurled off the bike as it careened off-road. The riderless motorcycle then slammed into a car as the rider attempted to flee on foot, according to The Oregonian.

By an extraordinary stroke of luck neither the biker nor the driver of the car his motorcycle hit was injured. Once apprehended the 19-year-old suspect was charged with a long list of offenses: “reckless driving, attempting to elude police, hit-and-run, driving without insurance and failing to have a motorcycle endorsement, as well as several citations,” the Statesman-Journal reported. The rider, according to The Oregonian, later told police he fled from them because he wanted to avoid getting “another” speeding ticket.

While it may be some comfort that this Oregon motorcycle crash led to the imprisonment of such an outrageously irresponsible rider, the driver of the car he hit as well as the many other motorists he endangered need to ask themselves whether prison alone serves the cause of justice.

Consulting a Salem or Portland motorcycle accident lawyer would be an important first step for the rogue biker’s victims in determining the best way to make themselves whole and see that justice is served in the wake of an accident like this. Beyond the unlucky driver whose car was hit by a flying motorcycle, one has to consider property damage the motorcycle may have caused and even incidental damage to cars whose drivers had to swerve to get out of the motorbiker’s way. All of these are issues best addressed with the help of an Oregon personal injury attorney specializing in motorcycle accidents.

Salem Statesman-Journal: High-speed accident results in charges

The Oregonian: Motorcyclist doing 125 mph gets ticket, no injuries after crash on I-5

A driver running a red light near Aurora caused a two-car Oregon car accident that sent an 87-year-old woman to the hospital late last week, according to police officials. As reported by the Canby Herald, the Marion County car crash occurred when a 34-year-old woman failed to stop at a traffic signal at the intersection of Highway 551 and Ehlen Road.

The victim, identified by police as Jean Inman of Aurora, was turning left onto Ehlen Road when a northbound car driven by the 34-year-old crashed into her in the intersection. Inman “was transported by LiftFlight to Legacy Emanuel Hospital,” the newspaper reported. Police described her injuries as “nonlife-threatening.” The driver of the car that struck Inman was not injured.

The good news element of this Aurora car accident story is that both drivers were wearing their seat belts, and that air bags in both vehicles deployed properly, according to police officials cited by the Herald. That fact almost certainly prevented more serious injuries on the part of both drivers.

The Herald reports that the driver of the car that hit Inman was cited by the police “for failure to obey a traffic control device.” Accidents like this, however, are a powerful reminder that responsibility and accountability do not end with the issuance of a police citation.

Victims injured in Oregon traffic accidents like this one often require more than the knowledge that a police citation was issued for them to feel that justice was served in the wake of an Aurora, Canby or Portland injury car accident. In such situations, confronted with the often-confusing world of our court system, the advice offered by a Portland car accident lawyer is often indispensible. An Oregon personal injury attorney with specialized knowledge of the laws surrounding car crashes, especially Oregon injury car crashes, can offer measured advice on the best ways for victims to proceed once the immediate trauma of the crash has passed.

Canby Herald: Friday accident sends Aurora woman to hospital

A task force formed earlier this year to address shortcomings at TriMet, Portland’s public transportation authority, has issued a scathing report calling for sweeping changes in the culture of the transportation agency. In particular, the task force wants TriMet to strike the word “accident” from both its dictionary and its mindset.

“The group recommended eliminating the term ‘accident’ from its vocabulary, saying it implies that collisions are unpreventable,” The Oregonian reported. The Task Force was formed after a horrific incident last April in which a bus driver making an illegal left turn hit five people in a Portland crosswalk, killing two of them.

Among other things, the group suggested new incentives for TriMet employees to work toward improving safety performance, greater use of traffic and collision data to determine where Portland’s safety trouble spots are located, the appointment of a senior official charged only with overseeing safety issues and the development of better systems through which to assess driver performance.

According to the newspaper, the group opted not to take a position on the contentious issue of driver surveillance: the idea of training security cameras on the drivers themselves to help ensure that they are not engaging in Portland distracted driving. According to The Oregonian, “TriMet suggested the idea to the task force after firing a bus driver for reading his Kindle behind the wheel.”

We can all welcome the Task Force’s work as a good step toward improving safety on public transport. Still, when collisions do occur victims need to move aggressively to protect themselves. These are the kind of situations where the advice and assistance offered by a Portland bus crash lawyer can be invaluable. An experienced Oregon personal injury attorney with specialized knowledge of bus crashes, train accidents and other public transportation mishaps can help victims better understand where they stand in terms of the law, and help them take the actions needed to obtain justice and restore balance to their lives in the wake of an accident.

The Oregonian: Report says TriMet must change its culture to achieve new levels of safety

As the nation settles in for another football-filled fall weekend many of the sport’s fans are focusing on new enforcement measures announced by the NFL in the last few days. The league wants to contain the damage being caused by violent, potentially catastrophic, hits. As has been reported just about everywhere, an unusually large number of stomach-churning plays last week led the league to issue fines, threaten suspensions and warn players that enforcement of the sport’s existing rules is going to be tougher from now on.

But as a pair of articles published at opposite ends of the country this week remind us, the dangers of traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, concussions or other serious injuries faced by high school, middle school and youth players are, in some ways, far greater than those confronting the highly-trained, closely monitored athletes of the NFL.

In a wide-ranging article published yesterday, the Los Angeles Times noted that, in Southern California, no baseline set of standards exists for medical care at high school football games. The article dramatically contrasts the situation at private schools that can afford to have a staff of as many as four athletic trainers and a doctor roaming the sidelines to that of poor public schools that make due with an ambulance parked at one end of the field. Such a situation, the paper notes, offers reassurance in the event of a catastrophic brain or spinal cord injury, but does little or nothing for players who suffer milder, harder to diagnose – and far more common – injuries, such as concussions.

Concussions, in turn, are the focus of the New York Times piece, which states bluntly that many parents may be putting far too much faith in the helmets their children wear when playing football. “Helmets both new and used are not – and never have been – tested against the forces believed to cause concussions,” the paper reports. It goes on to note that football helmets – standards for which have “not changed meaningfully” since they were first written in 1973 – are designed mainly “to withstand only the extremely high-level force that would otherwise fracture skulls.” Put another way, football helmets do relatively little to prevent the jarring injuries, such as concussions, which are increasingly being acknowledged as an issue at all levels of football.

These articles raise critical issues that Oregon parents need to consider when deciding whether to allow their children to play football or other sports. Oregon sports injuries can cause damage that permanently alters a child’s life. When such a tragedy occurs, an Oregon sport injury attorney can provide essential counsel to parents considering the best way to achieve justice and restore balance to their family. A Portland traumatic brain and spinal cord injury lawyer can be a traumatized family’s most important ally when school or sports officials fail to live up to their responsibilities to create a properly safe sports environment here in Oregon.

New York Times: As injuries rise, scant oversight of helmet safety

Los Angeles Times: High school football’s medical tightrope

After a seven-year investigation the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced this week that the Graco corporation has agreed to recall an estimated two million strollers manufactured prior to 2007, according to a report in today’s New York Times.

According to the newspaper, the CPSC became concerned that the strollers pose a risk of injuries to children by strangulation, particularly for children under the age of one, because “when left unharnessed, they can crawl through the opening between the seat and stroller tray and become trapped,” the paper reported. In all, four children’s deaths have been linked to the faulty strollers, along with five other incidents in which children were injured after becoming trapped in the strollers. The CPSC, according to the Times, has been investigating the product since the first report of a child’s death in 2003.

Graco is offering customers kits that will allow them to repair the strollers. The company agreed to the voluntary recall at this time “because many more parents were buying and selling secondhand strollers, probably because of the prolonged economic malaise,” the newspaper reported.

Oregon parents who own a Graco stroller should immediately go to the link I’ve provided below to the CPSC’s news release announcing the recall. This gives exact model numbers for the effected strollers, as well as information on the original prices and sale outlets (information that could be crucial in determining whether a 5-8 year old stroller is actually on the list).

While it is good to see the government moving forward, pressing Graco to recall a potentially dangerous product, one might also ask why it took the CPSC seven years to conclude that there was a serious problem with these strollers. Consulting a Portland child injury lawyer should be a top priority for any parent who believes his or her family has been the victim of these faulty strollers. Since the now-recalled strollers have been on the market since 2002, according to the CPSC, it is entirely possible that injuries suffered many years ago can only now be linked to Graco’s defective product. An Oregon personal injury attorney with experience in product recalls and Oregon injuries to children, can help you sort through the complexities of any potential legal action, offering valuable advice as you begin your fight for justice.

AP via The Oregonian: 4 deaths prompt Graco stroller recall

New York Times: Graco Recalls Strollers on Strangulation Concerns

CPSC News Release announcing the recall

Recent reporting by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer highlights important differences in how Washington and Oregon treat the reporting of medical errors. The article focuses on Washington, where hospitals are required to report their medical errors to state officials. It notes, however, that there are many holes in the system – notably concerning definitional questions. It also adds that such problems can be even worse in the 23 states where the reporting of hospital errors is not required by law.

Oregon, unfortunately, is one of those states. As the Oregon Patient Safety Commission’s website notes, its mission is to “establish a confidential, voluntary serious adverse event reporting system in Oregon.” Because reporting is voluntary, it is difficult to tell whether the 32 deaths from “preventable errors” in 2009 reported by The Oregonian earlier this year represent the sum total of deadly Oregon medical errors, or whether the problem is more serious than indicated by the available data.

In this regard the example of Washington is sobering. According to the Post-Intelligencer, even in a state where the reporting of serious hospital incidents is mandatory loopholes can allow obvious errors to slip through the system. The article I link to below tells the story of a Yakima man who went into the hospital for routine shoulder surgery, suffered brain damage due to nursing errors and died two days later. The newspaper reports that because the victim did not die within 24 hours of the surgery, however, the events were not considered to be related for incident reporting purposes. It took a complaint by the victim’s family for the incident to be formally logged and the hospital to become subject to disciplinary action.

The fact that Oregon’s medical error reporting laws are not as strong as they ought to be should give all of us pause. It also makes it all the more important that families of Oregon medical malpractice victims review their options with the assistance of an Oregon medical malpractice attorney at the first possible opportunity. A Portland lawyer with specialized experience in the field of medical errors can be your most important ally in the struggle to obtain justice in the wake of an Oregon hospital accident.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Despite law, medical errors likely to go unreported

The Oregonian: Preventable errors killed 32 patients in Oregon hospitals last year

RESOURCE:
Oregon Patient Safety Commission

A three-vehicle Central Oregon car accident over the weekend left one person dead and two injured. The Salem Statesman-Journal, quoting Oregon State Police, reports that 19-year-old Yardley Rico of Culver was driving north on US-97 when, for reasons still unknown, his car drifted over the center line.

Rico reportedly sideswiped one oncoming car before colliding head-on with another. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver and a passenger in the car he hit head-on were treated at a Redmond hospital for what the Statesman-Journal describes as “non-life threatening injuries.” The driver and passenger in the other car – the one Rico sideswiped – were not injured.

The Oregonian reported that OSP officials are still trying to determine “if safety belts were used by those involved in the accident.” It adds that Highway 97 “was closed in both directions for two hours after the accident while emergency responders treated the injured.”

Stories like this one are, tragically, too often a part of everyday life along our roads and highways. The fact that they are common does not, however, mean they should be excused or explained away. If you or a loved one have been the victim of an Oregon car accident there are many questions that need to be asked. Had the person responsible for the accident been drinking? If so, the person who served or sold him or her alcohol may share liability under Oregon’s dram shop laws. Are their other people whose conduct may have contributed to the accident? In what way?

All of these are issues that a Portland or Central Oregon car accident attorney can help clients sort through. The law can be complex, and often confusing. That is why competent, experienced legal help is so important in the wake of an Oregon car crash, as you begin the long road toward recovery, and the struggle to rebuild the parts of your life that have been lost or damaged.

The Oregonian: Three-car crash on US Highway 97 near Madras leaves one dead, two injured

Salem Statesman-Journal: One dead, two injured in three-car crash near Madras

A circuit court ruling issued at the end of last month has the potential to offer significant protections for Oregon families considering wrongful death claims related to Oregon nursing home abuse and neglect or medical malpractice.

The case, formally known as Bradley v Sebelius, turns on a wrongful death claim in Florida. After Charles Burke died in early 2005 his ten surviving children sued the nursing home where he had lived prior to his final hospitalization claiming that the nursing home’s negligence led to the infection that eventually killed their father. The case was settled out-of-court without reaching trial, with the nursing home’s insurer agreeing to a claim of $52,500 – the maximum that the home’s liability insurance policy would allow.

At that point, however, Medicare stepped in demanding that around half of the total settlement be remitted to the government to reimburse Medicare’s expenditures for Burke’s hospital care prior to his death. A probate court ruled against Medicare, deciding that it was entitled only to a share of the wrongful death settlement and awarding the government $787.50. Medicare took the case to federal court and won at the district level. That decision has now been reversed by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 11th Circuit covers Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Technically speaking the ruling is binding only in those states. Federal courts throughout the country, however, are bound to take notice of it – and the ruling offers Oregon wrongful death attorneys a powerful precedent they may cite when arguing similar Oregon nursing home abuse and neglect claims in our own courts.

Situations like this are examples of exactly the sort of complex legal issues that a Portland wrongful death attorney can sort through on clients’ behalf. If you have been forced to surrender a substantial portion of a Portland wrongful death settlement to Medicare, Medicaid or another government agency to reimburse costs they incurred while your loved one was still alive the government’s math is not the only thing that counts. A Portland wrongful death attorney can examine your case and advise on the best way to protect your rights.

Link to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion: Bradley v Sebelius

Three years after Ruby Larson wandered away from the assisted care home in which she was living, a Multnomah County jury this week awarded her family $875,000 in damages, finding Oregon negligence in the way the facility cared for her.

According to a report in The Oregonian, Larson’s family contended that the retirement community and its parent corporation were guilty of Oregon nursing home abuse and neglect, contending that the facility “failed to provide adequate care for Larson and prevent her from repeatedly wandering off.” The defendants replied that Larson was “a fiery, spirited and sometimes stubborn woman” who, in the words of the company’s attorney, “lived the life she wanted to live.” Apparently, that included regularly wandering away from the facility – including three times in the month before her final disappearance.

Though she disappeared in 2007, Larson’s body was not found until May of this year. According to the newspaper, a 4 year old searching for a lost cat discovered her skeleton, still clothed except for her shoes, in some bushes only a quarter-mile from the retirement facility.

Such cases of Oregon nursing home neglect cry out for justice. It is not sufficient for management to claim that dealing with elderly patients suffering from dementia is difficult – if they accept responsibility for our loved ones then they also assume obligations for their safety and well-being.

If you believe a loved one has suffered because of negligent Oregon nursing home care, it is important to make contact with a Portland personal injury attorney with specialized knowledge of Oregon nursing home abuse, neglect and wrongful death law. When you entrust the care of an elderly relative to a retirement or assisted living facility you have every right to expect that your loved one will receive the respect and professional treatment they deserve. When the unthinkable happens and our seniors are not treated properly an Oregon eldercare abuse and neglect lawyer can help you decide on your best course of action.

The Oregonian: Jury awards $821,000 to family of 74-year-old who wandered away from Molalla care facility and died

The NHL’s 2010-11 season opens at 9am PT tomorrow when the Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild face off in Helsinki, Finland, one of several Europe-based openers the league has planned. But when the Boston Bruins take to the ice against the Phoenix Coyotes in Prague, Czech Republic a few days later the specter of traumatic brain injuries will hang over the team in the form of their absent star center, Marc Savard.

As I noted in several blogs last spring, the concussion Savard sustained after a vicious hit to the head spurred interim rule changes while last season was still under way. After having the summer months to consider tweaks to those rules, the NHL recently announced that it is banning what are known as “blindside hits” to the head – like the one that took out Savard – according to the Reuter News Agency.

Speaking to reporters, however, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman noted that the new version of the rule is also designed to ensure that “some of the responsibility for player safety remains with the player being targeted,” according to the Reuters report.

Savard returned to the ice briefly some weeks after his injury last March, but it quickly became clear he had not fully recovered from his traumatic head injury. He has not been able to practice fully throughout the summer, and is not traveling to Prague with his teammates. Exactly when, if ever, he will be able to return to the game remains uncertain.

Hockey, like football, is a game built around tough, often violent, action. Still, it is also clear that the pro leagues have an obligation to try to make the game safe. This extends not only to the players the league and its teams employ. It also includes the example the pros set for younger players, including children, who take them as models. Severe head injuries, here in Oregon and elsewhere, remain both a problem and a serious risk in hockey, football and other sports. If you are a parent who believes that responsible adults may have failed to take reasonable precautions to prevent a Portland traumatic brain injury you owe it to yourself to consult with a Portland brain injury lawyer on the options the legal system may be able to offer you.

Reuters: Rule on NHL blindside hits to have biggest impact on new season

NESN: Marc Savard’s rehab schedule will keep him from traveling to Prague

Regular readers of this blog know that I have been reminding Oregonians since last year of the importance of the Oregon distracted driving law that went into effect January 1. An ever-growing number of studies nationwide testify to the importance of concentration behind the wheel and the particular dangers posed by hand-held cellphones.

Last week saw a Portland car crash that highlighted these truths in an exceptionally ironic manner. According to a report on KPTV’s website a Portland driver who was talking on his cellphone rear-ended a police car. OK, it was an unmarked patrol car, not a marked cruiser. Still, if you are going to have an accident while violating the Oregon distracted law, getting collared because you hit a cop car does tend to make things look even worse.

According to KPTV the accident took place on I-205 near Foster Road early last Tuesday morning. The 70-year old driver of a Toyota was, according to police quoted by the TV station, heading south on the interstate while using his cellphone without a hands-free device when he rear-ended the police car as it cruised along at 55 miles per hour.

No one was hurt in the accident. The drivers of both vehicles involved in the Portland car accident reportedly were wearing their seat belts. According to KGW.com the driver of the civilian vehicle “was cited for careless driving and operating a motor vehicle while using a mobile communication device.”

The police, of course, can defend themselves. The rest of us do not have the same resources. That is where the assistance an experienced Portland distracted driving attorney offers can prove to be invaluable. If you or a loved one have been involved in an accident caused by an Oregon distracted driver you owe it to yourself to consult with an Oregon car accident lawyer with expertise in distracted driving cases.

KPTV.com: Distracted Driver Hits Patrol Car, Troopers Say

KGW.com: Driver on cell phone plows into cop on I-205