Oregon Injury Lawyer Blog

November 7, 2011

Oregon Midair Collision Focuses Attention on Aviation Safety

Late last month a small plane carrying both a student pilot and a flight instructor dove suddenly over Yamhill County, striking and literally slicing to pieces a smaller plane flying at a lower altitude, according to The Oregonian. The pilot and passenger of the descending plane were uninjured, but the pilot of the plane they hit died in the Oregon air crash. Both planes were flying out of Hillsboro, and the midair collision occurred “northwest of Aurora State Airport,” the newspaper reports.

The troubling thing emerging in media reports concerning this Oregon aviation accident is the revelation that this was not the first fatal accident involving students at a particular Hillsboro-based flight school. That fact raises troubling questions, and even the possibility that an Oregon wrongful death claim might eventually emerge from the investigations surrounding the crash.

The earlier fatal Oregon air crash incident, according to The Oregonian, took place when “a company flight instructor and his student died in September 2009 when the helicopter they were flying crashed in a field south of Forest Grove and burst into flames.” Perhaps even more ominously, “investigators looking at the helicopter crash “concluded that the flight crew’s failure to maintain adequate rotor speed resulted in a stall, followed by an uncontrolled descent to the ground.”

November 4, 2011

Oregon Distracted Driving Questions Raised by New Technologies

by Matthew D. Kaplan

A fascinating article published in Slate a few days ago raises some intriguing questions regarding Oregon distracted driving laws and some of the latest technologies making their way into our cars and onto our cellphones.

The article focuses on Siri, the computerized ‘assistant’ bundled into the latest version of the iPhone. As the author notes, “Apple advertises Siri as a way to get stuff done while you’re otherwise occupied,” and notes that the company’s videos show people using the application while, among other things, driving.

The legal question for Oregonians and others raised by the article is simple: do distracted driving laws, like Oregon’s, which ban texting while driving extend to a text-by-voice service? “Voice texting could be illegal in many places,” the piece notes, because of wording in the relevant legislation that makes “it illegal to ‘send’ texts,” or, in some cases, prohibits any form of electronic communication. “Each of these versions would make Siri-based texting verboten, because even if you dictate a message, you’re still, technically, sending some kind of electronic communication.”

November 1, 2011

Medical Report Offers New Hope for Spinal Cord Injury Victims

by Matthew D. Kaplan

When we contemplate the effects of an Oregon spinal cord injury one of the most tragic realities is the knowledge that such injuries are often irreversible. Months of hard work with a physical therapist may do much to make things better, but rarely does a patient have any real hope of returning to life as it was before an Oregon car accident or some other tragedy caused the spinal cord injury.

A recent medical study, however, holds out the prospect that scientists are taking some early steps toward changing this. The La Jolla Light reported recently on a study by biologists at the University of California – San Diego. Working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Oregon, the scientists focused on “more than 70 genes that play a role in regenerating nerves after injury.”

According to the newspaper, the two-year project uncovered “a set of genetic leads that may one day result in therapies to repair spinal cord injuries and other common kinds of nerve damage, such as a stroke.”

October 28, 2011

Reckless Oregon Driver Closes Area Road With Four-Car Crash

by Matthew D. Kaplan

Reckless driving charges are now on the books for a Portland man after a four-car Oregon car accident allegedly caused by his reckless driving, The Oregonian reports. The crash took place in Sherwood, near Beaverton, Oregon.

The newspaper reports that the Oregon car crash on Route 99W took place Wednesday. “Witnesses told investigators an Audi A4 was speeding and weaving in and out of traffic for several miles” along the road before it “crashed into a line of cars stopped at a red light,” the paper notes. The Audi, driven by a 31-year old Portland man, was reportedly traveling at more than 50 miles per hour when it hit a car driven by a 19-year-old Newberg woman. That collision, in turn, set off a chain reaction that damaged two other cars and left the affected stretch of road closed for more than an hour.

The drivers of both the Audi and the car he struck were taken to an area hospital with what The Oregonian describes as “non-life-threatening injuries.” The driver, meanwhile, “was arrested on charges of reckless driving” by Washington County law enforcement officials.

October 26, 2011

Portland Bicycle Accidents and Following the Traffic Laws

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An excellent piece by The Oregonian’s traffic and commuting columnist raised an issue that all of us who care about the Portland cycling community need to think about: how important is it that cyclists observe the traffic laws?

The Oregon bicycling accident article focuses specifically on the question of red lights. We all know, of course, that bicycles are vehicles just like a car or truck. Cyclists have the same right to use the road (with a few exceptions, such as interstate highways) as any car or truck, but with that right comes an equal set of responsibilities. We have all seen bikers who blow through red lights or stop signs or weave through traffic.

Leaving aside the obvious observation that such behavior is incredibly dangerous it is also illegal. As the newspaper notes, “the potential risks are known: a hefty ticket, hitting a pedestrian, possibly even getting killed.” What the column then goes on to do is address head-on, and effectively demolish, the excuse offered by many cycling scofflaws: the idea that they are saving time by ignoring the rules of the road. Just as we have all seen drivers weave dangerously through traffic only to find them sitting beside us at a red light a mile up the road, so the author carefully charts the progress of a Portland cyclist he observed riding dangerously, versus a law-abiding group whom the scofflaw passed when running a red light. The lone rider did not, in fact, get anywhere noticeably faster than the safe, law-abiding cyclists.

October 22, 2011

Oregon Child Injury in Coos Bay Accident

by Matthew D. Kaplan

All too often I use this blog to write about Oregon auto accidents and Portland pedestrian accidents involving drunk driving. It is useful, however, to be reminded now and then that the most tragic accidents – those involving injured Oregon children – do not necessarily involve impaired drivers.

From Coos Bay comes word of an accident in which a “woman and her young daughter were badly injured when they were struck by a truck while crossing Newmark Avenue” according to the Coos Bay World. The accident is notable for the fact that, according to the paper, the driver, who was uninjured in the Oregon car accident, “was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to a police (news) release,” the paper reports.

The victims in this instance were a 28-year-old woman and her 7-year-old daughter. Both were badly injured and were transferred to Portland where they were admitted Oregon Health Sciences University hospital.

October 20, 2011

Oregon Wrongful Death Questions Reopened by New Study

by Matthew D. Kaplan

When five Beaverton families and Mattel Corporation settled Oregon wrongful death lawsuits related to contaminated water near one of the company’s former plants earlier this year issues related to cancer rates and carcinogens were not closed. According to a recent article in The Oregonian a new study conducted by a Beaverton resident, combined with a reassessment of the toxicity of the chemical at issue – trichloroethylene, also known as TCE – are potentially bringing the question of Oregon wrongful death claims back into the public arena.

The newspaper’s article focuses on a long-running Beaverton wrongful death case involving a plant that was originally owned by View-Master and later passed through several other corporate hands before being closed by Mattel in 2001.

In 1998, the paper reports, “TCE was found in concentrations 320 times the federal standard in a private well that supplied drinking water” for the plant. “Many former workers, who sipped the tainted water later suffered from cancers, according to an unofficial health study.” In May, Mattel settled Oregon wrongful death claims with five families. Now, however, the paper reports that a new health study funded by the Oregon Community Foundation “may strengthen the case for other workers who wish to file lawsuits.” The study “suggests a strong connection between TCE exposure and certain cancers,” the paper quotes its author, Amanda Evans-Healy saying. Evans-Healy was one of the successful defendants in the earlier set of Beaverton wrongful death actions.

October 17, 2011

Two, Including Passerby, Injured in Oregon Hit-and-Run Car Crash

by Matthew D. Kaplan

An Oregon car crash in Scappoose, north of Portland, initially injured one woman then left a second woman seriously injured when she, in turn, became the victim of a hit-and-run driver after stopping to help, according to a recent dispatch in The Oregonian.

The newspaper, quoting a Multnomah County law enforcement spokesman, reports that the Northern Oregon auto accident began when a 30-year-old woman headed west on U.S. Route 30 “left the roadway, striking a guard rail near the Oregon Department of Transportation weigh station east of Scappoose.” The paper also notes that in the minutes prior to the crash “callers to 9-1-1 reported seeing a” car similar to the one that crashed “driving erratically and weaving in and out of traffic.” The Oregon car crash threw the driver from her vehicle, leaving her lying injured in the road’s median.

Moments later another woman, accompanied by her 23-year-old daughter, stopped to help the victim, while another driver positioned his car on the road “in an attempt to keep cars from striking the three women. But a westbound Pontiac Grand Am went around that car, striking both the injured woman in the center median and the good Samaritan’s daughter and then continuing west toward St. Helen’s” where she was stopped a short time later by police.

October 13, 2011

Oregon Drunk Driving Perils Highlighted by Grieving Father’s Donation

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The fatal Oregon drunk driving crash made headlines around the state: a young woman killed when her pick-up truck veered off the road “at a high rate of speed, hit a power pole and landed in a stand of trees,” according to an account in the Oregon City News.

“Officers said it took half an hour to free” the victim, a 25-year-old woman, from the vehicle. “She was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Oregon Health and Science University Hospital … in critical condition and died the next day from her injuries,” the newspaper reports. The Oregon truck accident attracted an unusual amount of attention because the collision with the electrical pole caused many residents of Oregon City to lose power for several hours on that late-September evening. Police said alcohol appeared to be a factor in the crash. The victim’s father told the newspaper that an open container of alcohol was found in the car’s wreckage.

Now, in a gesture he hopes will offer a lesson to other young people, that grieving father is donating the frightening-looking remains of his daughter’s car to Oregon Impact, a non-profit group that “tours mangled cars to illustrate the dangers of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol,” according to the newspaper. The group’s website lays out the scope of the problem in stark terms: 30% of Oregon teen driving deaths, it notes, are “alcohol-related.”

October 7, 2011

Hockey Season Brings New Focus on Concussions, Traumatic Brain Injuries

by Matthew D. Kaplan

The National Hockey League’s 2011-12 season kicked off last night with both the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins and the team they edged out last summer, the Vancouver Canucks, losing close fought, first-night match-ups.

Those games (along with a Montreal-Toronto contest) were the first official ones to be played under new NHL rules that severely restrict (but do not entirely ban) hits to the head during play. Long known as a fast and violent game, professional hockey has shown increasing concern for the long-term health of its players in recent years. Concussions and traumatic brain injuries emerged as a concern partly because of changes in the game itself – players are larger, skate faster, hit harder and wear better padding than their predecessors a generation (let alone half a century) ago, and the wear and tear on their bodies shows. The issue became especially salient for the league in the wake of several high-profile injuries that have sidelined star players for extended periods of time.

The most notable examples are Boston’s Marc Savard who has never completely recovered from a grade 2 concussion sustained in March 2010, and Pittsburgh’s Sydney Crosby, arguably the league’s most famous active player, who has not played since the beginning of the year after suffering two hits to the head in rapid succession during games on January 1 and January 5.