Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

A recent profile in The Oregonian details the struggles, and mutual support, of Portland burn victims, offering a reminder of how devastating this kind of injury can be. The article focuses on Portland Burn Survivors, Inc. and a related group, Burn Concern. The latter is organized by Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, Oregon’s only hospital with a full-scale burn unit.

The paper notes that the prospects for Oregon burn victims have changed substantially over the last generation. “Until about 30 years ago, survival of a bad burn meant constant pain and medical complications that usually led to swift death,” the article states. Advances in medical technology have increased survival rates, and made life after a burn more tolerable for many in physical terms, but have done little to alter the stigma society often attaches to those dealing with a disfiguring injury.

Burns, of course, can happen for any number of reasons. The survivors profiled by The Oregonian received their injuries in vastly different ways – ranging from a camping accident to a car crash. One was severely injured as a 13 year old by an outdoor garbage fire.

The very variety of their experience, however, attests to the need to consider the long-term consequences of life after a severe burn. A fact box accompanying the article notes that of the 138 people who died in fires here in Oregon between 2004 and 2008 half “were in single-family homes or duplexes, 31 percent in mobile homes or trailers and 17 percent in multifamily housing.” In roughly half of those cases “there was no smoke alarm” in the dwelling, or the alarm did not go off. Such statistics, by their very nature, raise questions of responsibility and accountability.

When embarking on the long and difficult road to recovery from an Oregon burn accident survivors and their loved ones need to give serious thought to both the cause of the fire and its long-term consequences. A Portland personal injury attorney can advise burn survivors of their options and on the remedies the legal system may offer those seeking justice in the wake of a personal and family tragedy – particular one whose consequences are likely to be felt every day for years to come.

The Oregonian: In Portland, burn survivors find a new way to step out into the world again; sometimes, it’s as simple as lunch

A six-car pile up blocked traffic on Interstate 5 last week and police say a blown tire may have been what set the incident in motion, according to The Oregonian. The dangerous Oregon car accident involved a vehicle jumping the median into on-coming traffic.

The newspaper, quoting Oregon State Police sources, reports that an SUV was traveling north on I-5 at mid-afternoon when the driver “lost control at about 2:30 p.m., crossing a grass median and slamming into an oncoming car just north of Portland Road NE.”

The attribution of the accident to a blow-out remained speculative at the time the paper went to press. The results of the accident were not: the SUV hit one oncoming car head-on. Four other vehicles swerving to avoid the main collision wound up hitting each other. Surprisingly, for so large an accident, only three people from the six vehicles were hospitalized, and only one of those injuries was reported to be serious, according to the newspaper.

Any significant Salem, Portland, Eugene or Corvallis car accident like this one requires careful investigation. Those involved can count themselves lucky that the injuries were not as extensive as might have been expected from a six-car pile-up, but they also need to consider whether traffic citations, should the state police decide to issue any, are sufficient to address the accident victims’ need for justice.

An Oregon car crash lawyer can help accident victims consider issues like these, and advise on the best legal remedies as crash survivors seek justice in the wake of an accident for which they bear no fault.

The Oregonian: Tire blow-out suspected cause of six car accident Tuesday in Salem

A Florida lawsuit concerning a serious burn suffered by a four year old boy while visiting Disney World raises questions every parent should be concerned about regarding safety and possible injuries to children at theme parks and other recreational areas.

Contrary to what one might think, the case involves food safety – not the safety of amusement park rides (arguably the first thing many parents worry about when visiting a theme park). According to an account of the incident published in USA Today, the boy was severely burned while having dinner in a restaurant at Disney’s Magic Kingdom resort near Orlando “when a paper cup of scalding nacho cheese splashed on his face after he’d grabbed a food tray to keep from falling out of an unsteady chair.” A picture accompanying the newspaper report shows a small child with horrific burns disfiguring his face.

Some commentators have compared this to the famous McDonald’s hot coffee case of the mid-90s. But even if you were among those who thought the coffee case excessive it is important to understand that there are key difference between that case and this one. Aside from the obvious factor that a child is involved, it is (or ought to be) clear that customers have different expectations from different products. Coffee is intended to be consumed hot. Nachos, especially the processed kind one finds at an amusement park or a ballgame, are generally warm, at best. One does not expect the goopy cheese sauce to be cold – but no reasonable customer is expecting it to be scalding hot either.

The Disney case is a useful reminder for us here in Oregon that Portland injuries to minors are a serious concern in many settings we often take for granted. Operators of recreational and entertainment facilities have an obligation to provide their customers – especially children – with a safe environment in which to enjoy their leisure time. When they fail in that duty, parents should consult with an Oregon child injury lawyer at the first available opportunity. Justice is about more than simply gaining compensation for medical bills or for the suffering of your child. It involves holding the powerful to account for their actions – or dangerous inaction.

USA Today: Parents sue over son’s hot nacho cheese injury at Disney World

With little public notice this week the House Judiciary Committee in Washington DC sent to the floor a proposed law that, if enacted, will dramatically curtail the right of Oregonians to receive just compensation in medical malpractice lawsuits. As laid out in the official summary of the legislation (click here to read the full summary at the legislative-tracking website Thomas.gov) the so-called Help Efficient, Accessible, Low Cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011 would shorten the statute of limitations for most medical malpractice cases and make it much more difficult to win punitive damages in an Oregon medical malpractice case. Any defendant who managed to win in court despite these new rules would find that the law also places severe limits on the size of the damages a court can award.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), was first introduced late last month as HR 5 (the Senate version of the legislation, S 218, is sponsored by Nevada Republican John Ensign). It was hustled through the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month and passed out of committee on a voice vote – a stunningly fast timeline for such potentially momentous legislation.

Two of the most telling aspects of HR 5 are clauses that would shield the pharmaceutical and medical device industries from responsibility for their actions while limiting attorney’s fees in medical malpractice and medical wrongful death suits to a level that may discourage many attorneys from taking on such cases.

The sections shielding medical companies would bar the awarding of punitive damages for any claim against a product “approved, cleared or licensed by the Food and Drug Administration” while also making it much harder to sue the doctors and other medical staff themselves. Victims would have to prove that a medical professional had acted with “malicious intent” – a standard that seems designed to be impossible to meet.

Even if someone did manage to convince a court that a doctor was trying to harm the patient (that’s basically what “malicious intent” means) the law would severely limit both the amount the victim could win, and the portion of the award that could go for attorney’s fees. In this respect, the bill seems to be modeled on legislation recently enacted in Texas which, as I wrote last December, has made it difficult for victims to find attorneys economically able to take their cases and defend them against deep-pocketed hospitals and medical companies.

The question going forward is whether we, as Americans, will allow our rights to justice and fair compensation to be taken away so easily?

A recent Oregonian story on young athletes and Oregon brain injuries focuses not only on the potential consequences of head injuries here in Oregon and elsewhere, but spotlights how seemingly minor incidents can lead to TBI. As the article notes: “Despite national campaigns and state laws to increase awareness about teenagers and concussions, victims… still struggle to find effective relief.”

The article focuses on a high school basketball player who wound up missing nearly two years on the court after “a stray ball bopped her on the head.” The incident seemed relatively minor at the time, but coming, as it did, shortly after another head injury (“a sharp knee to the head during a spirit-building game of tunnel tag,” as The Oregonian puts it) it was enough not only to sideline the teenage girl’s basketball career but also to launch her into a two year odyssey of headaches, lowered cognitive function and repeated rounds of treatment.

The girl, now 17, is finally back in school and was recently able to return to her high school basketball team, the paper reports. But her experience is a reminder of how difficult diagnosis and treatment of Portland brain injuries often is where younger athletes are concerned. This is especially worrisome since, as the paper notes, a CDC study found that “adolescents are more likely than adults to get a concussion and take longer to recover.”

Oregon and other states have sought to address the issue with legislation. A new state law requires players suspected of concussions to be removed from games immediately. As the piece cited here indicates, however, greater public awareness is still needed of the Oregon brain injury dangers involved in sports – such as basketball – that we are not accustomed to think about as violent. Put another way, the problem is not confined to football and hockey, but it has taken time for parents, school officials and athletes themselves to understand that fact.

Families looking for a way to move beyond trauma often require legal as well as medical advice. A Portland brain injury lawyer can be offer invaluable assistance to athletes and their families coping with the aftermath of an Oregon head injury sustained on the field, diamond, court or rink.

The Oregonian: Concussions, an injury rising among teen athletes, more profound and enduring than previously known

On its surface it is an Oregon wrongful death story so unbelievable it reads like the plot of a prime time police drama: a man feeling ill and heading for the hospital suffers a heart attack, crashes his car into a wall inside the hospital’s parking structure only steps from the emergency room entrance… then lies there, unconscious, for 20 minutes before anyone notices him. When summoned to the scene, the police attempt to revive him while sending another officer running into the emergency room for help – only to be told that hospital protocol requires the police to call 911 first and then wait for a dispatcher to give a formal order for the hospital’s own ambulance to pick up a patient lying only steps from the emergency room door, according to an account published in The Oregonian.

The heart attack victim, Birgilio Marin-Fuentes eventually made it into the emergency room, but was pronounced dead a short time later. The week since this Oregon hospital death has been marked by finger pointing between the police and the hospital, Portland Adventist, a threat from a U.S. congressman to investigate the hospital and seeming incomprehension throughout the city at how bureaucracy could have gotten so badly in the way of what would seem to be simple common sense.

However this case is eventually resolved on a criminal level, it raises serious questions that may also need to be resolved in civil court, via a Portland wrongful death or Portland medical malpractice lawsuit. Even if there were compelling reasons to adhere to procedures designed to dispatch emergency care across town, rather than across the hospital’s own parking lot, one needs to ask, in turn, why the emergency protocols themselves were so rigid.

Questions like these are best addressed with the help of a Portland wrongful death attorney who specializes in Oregon medical malpractice and personal injury law. A skilled legal specialist can advise families and survivors on the best ways to obtain justice in the wake of what can seem like a particularly senseless tragedy.

The Oregonian: Portland police try to save a life just outside Portland Adventist Medical Center

The criminal phase of the trial of a Tri-Met driver responsible for what The Oregonian calls “the worst transit tragedy in modern Portland history” has reached a turning point. Earlier this month, Sandi Day was convicted on all six charges she faced stemming from last year’s fatal Portland bus crash.

According to the newspaper, the judge “ordered Day to pay more than $1000 in fines, perform 200 hours of community service and complete a traffic safety course.” She also faces the loss of her commercial driving license and possible additional fines if she does not “comply with her sentence within a year.” As I noted in a post early last summer, the accident has already led to changes in Tri-Met’s operating procedures.

Day drove her bus into five people last April as she executed an illegal left turn. According to The Oregonian, police testified at her trial that she kept driving for 2.5 seconds after hitting five pedestrians in a crosswalk at approximately 13 miles per hour. Two of the pedestrians were dragged beneath the bus and died. Three others were injured.

As the newspaper reports, “a Multnomah County grand jury cleared (Day) of criminal wrongdoing in the crash.” That fact accounts for what some readers might see as a relatively minor sentence (a fine and community service) for an Oregon fatal bus crash resulting in two deaths. Day still faces civil cases, however. The paper notes that one of the crash survivors is suing Day, Tri-Met’s former general manager “and others” for $30 million in damages.

Cases like this are a reminder of why our civil court procedures are so important. When a grand jury fails to hand up significant criminal charges the civil court process allows victims and their families a chance to right the scales and see justice done through Oregon wrongful death suits, Oregon personal injury suits and other legal actions.

The Oregonian: Judge convicts former TriMet driver Sandi Day of all charges in crash that killed two women

An article just published by the online magazine Slate raises an intriguing question: is it safer to drive head-first into a parking spot, the way most Americans do? Or to back into it? The question is relevant because if there is strong data suggesting that backing into parking spaces is, by and large, safer that, in turn, would mean that we ought to begin looking at Oregon car accidents in different ways.

We all know, of course, that Portland car accidents can lead to any number of traumas: Oregon brain injuries, injuries to children, even wrongful death. Who among us has not had a near miss either when backing out of a parking space or when passing by (whether in a car or on foot) someone who is doing so without paying sufficient attention.

Though Slate notes that “parking lot crash statistics are a bit hazy,” it goes on to note: “a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in 2001 and 2002 found that 14 percent of all damage claims involved crashes in parking lots (some number of which must have involved vehicles moving in and out of spaces).” Further, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a report to Congress last year estimated that “backover crashes,” as they are officially known, “cause at least 183 fatalities annually” as well as approximately 7000 injuries. The NHTSA is studying new rules that it hopes may lower these numbers by cutting the size of vehicle blind spots.

Pedestrians of all ages are at risk where Oregon backover crashes are concerned, as are Portland cyclists. As the government report notes however, it is children who are particularly vulnerable where backover injuries are concerned.

An Oregon child injury lawyer can help victims and their families as they as they consider their next moves in the aftermath of a backover crash or other Portland car accident. For the moment, it might also be good for the rest of us to at least think about Slate’s advice and consider backing into parking spaces more often. As the magazine notes, when you back in you have the opportunity in driving past the space to glance over and ensure that it is clear before starting to park. Similarly, when pulling out one has a clearer view of the traffic or the rest of the parking lot.

Slate: You’re Parking Wrong

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Vehicle Backover Avoidance Technology Study – Report to Congress

February 6 to 12 is National Burn Awareness Week. Here in Portland, Safe Kids Oregon (a project of the Oregon Public Health Division) opens its website promoting burn awareness with a particularly startling fact related to injuries to Oregon children: a “young child’s skin is thinner than older children and adults, and their skin burns at lower temperatures and more deeply.”

As the site goes on to note there are numerous ways that burns can happen in and around the home. We are all aware, for example, of kitchen dangers: steam, open flames, burners that look cool when they are not, etc. And most people with small children are aware that they should block sockets and replace frayed cords to lessen the risk of electrical burns. It is worth remembering, however, that burns can happen anywhere in the home. Safe Kids Oregon’s Burn Awareness Week web page, for example, includes a very useful section on bathroom hazards.

As the website notes, “accidental childhood injury” is “the leading killer of children 14 and under.”

With that in mind it is important that all of us, as adults, do everything in our power to prevent Oregon bicycle accidents, Oregon car accidents and other potential disasters that can leave children seriously injured – in some cases scarred for life. Taking this time to focus on the particular dangers posed by burns is especially useful.

When tragedy strikes and injuries do occur it is also important that parents understand the choices they face as they attempt to restore a sense of justice and balance to their family lives. A Portland child injury lawyer with expertise in personal injury and burn law can be an invaluable ally for parents coping with a family disaster and seeking a path back to normalcy.

Safe Kids Oregon: Burn Awareness Week

American Burn Association: Burn Awareness Week

Do cyclists wearing headphones pose a danger equivalent to drivers using a handheld cellphone to talk or text? That is a question the Oregon legislature is poised to address during the current session.

Rep. Michael Schaufler (D-Happy Valley) has introduced a bill (HB 2602) that, according to the advocacy organization BikePortland “would create a new traffic violation for ‘unsafe operation of a bicycle’”. The offense would target anyone riding “a bicycle on a highway while wearing a listening device that is capable of receiving telephonic communication, radio broadcasts or recorded sounds.” Violations could lead to a fine of up to $90 – the same amount as violations of the Oregon distracted driving law. To judge from the coverage at BikePortland the reaction among local cyclists has been far from positive. A selection of comments posted on the blog of BikePortland publisher/editor Jonathan Maus is pretty much uniformly negative.

An interesting aspect of this legislation which has not been addressed in the media coverage, however, is the degree to which this attempt to cut down on Oregon bicycle accidents differs in fundamental philosophical ways from the existing, year-old, Oregon distracted driving ban.

Distracted driving laws focus first and foremost on the hands: the idea that operation of a handheld cellphone, be it to make calls or to text, creates an inordinately dangerous distraction for people operating a motor vehicle. That is why such laws here in Oregon and elsewhere, focus on getting drivers to use hands-free headsets (and to cut out texting entirely). In theory a cyclist using a hands-free phone headset should be no more distracted than a driver. The proposed distracted cycling law, however, is concerned primarily with the ears, rather than the hands. The problem Rep. Schaufler sees arises not from taking one’s eyes off the road while dialing but from losing the awareness of the broader environment when external noise is blotted out by a rider’s earphones.

As BikePortland notes, it is currently unclear whether the existing Oregon distracted driving law applies to cyclists (though, for the record, texting while riding a bike is one of the very few things that is even stupider and more dangerous than texting while driving a car). However, as any Portland bike accident lawyer can attest, safe riding is every cyclist’s responsibility. Even here in Portland, one of America’s most bike-friendly cities, riders need to be paying attention to the road because, as any cyclist will tell you, riders can’t count on drivers to do that job for them.

KGW.com: Lawmakers target cyclists with headphones

BikePortland.org: Another look at HB 2602, which would prohibit biking with headphones on

CNET: Wear your earbuds on the street? Get Fined.

The driver of a van whose crash left his two passengers dead earlier this week has been charged with a range of offenses, including manslaughter in the first degree and Oregon drunk driving, according to The Oregonian.

The Oregon car accident occurred Tuesday morning near Seal Rock, on the Central Oregon coast. The Oregonian, quoting Oregon State Police, reports that 24-year-old Jose De Leon Colomo was driving north on US-101 when his “van failed to negotiate a left curve, traveled over an embankment, and crashed into a tree, police said. The van broke into several pieces.”

The two passengers in the van were pronounced dead at the scene of the alleged Central Oregon drunk driving crash. Colomo, the driver, was treated at an area hospital before being placed under arrest and transferred to the Lincoln County jail. In addition to drunk driving and manslaughter he has also been charged with recklessly endangering another person and reckless driving, according to The Oregonian.

In incidents like these survivors and their families, once they are past the initial crisis and shock of the accident, need to consider their options as they seek to see justice done and to put their lives back together. Drunk driving can often be traced to bartenders or liquor store staff who can be held accountable for their actions under Oregon’s dram shop laws. Car accidents that stem from negligence may lead to Oregon wrongful death claims.

A Portland personal injury attorney with expertise in Oregon dram shop laws, Oregon drunk driving cases and Oregon wrongful death actions can offer advice in difficult times like these, helping bereaved families consider their options as they try to put their lives back together and seek justice.

The Oregonian: Newport man charged with manslaughter after two die in van wreck

Siuslaw News: Update on 101 fatal crash: driver arrested