Birmingham Injury Blog

The Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article on the latest slip and fall statistics. Nearly a third of Americans ages 65 and older will sustain an injury due to a fall; deaths as a result of falls have been rising since the year 2000.

Falls account for 87% of the annual 250,000 hip fractures in people over 65. Hip fractures can then lead to other serious health complications such as blood clots, "skin breakdown" and pressure sores, ulcers and infection. More time for recovery is needed, which raises the risk of the above complications.

Family members can help their elderly relatives by trying to lessen the risk of the possible side effects. For example, try to keep seniors among familiar settings where they are less of a risk of suffering a fall. Also, to make sure they are in the best possible health, make sure they attend their doctor's appointments, which might require making driving arrangements for less mobile seniors. Make sure they are taking all their necessary medications and receiving proper nutrition. These measures will help ensure your family member stays as healthy as possible and lessens the risk of any negative outcomes.

The Indiana Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an entry about the risks of surgical fires and how to prevent them. There are roughly 550-650 surgical fires a year, with about 1-2 being fatal and 30 resulting in serious injuries.

The risk of being the victim of a surgical fire (or "flash fire") is rather low, but the article suggests that it is entirely too high considering the fires are completely preventable.

According to ECRI forensic investigators, most flash fires occur when high oxygen levels cause material like surgical sheets in the operating room, to ignite. High oxygen levels can often be found under these sheets or drapes. Other common causes of flash fires are alcohol-based cleaners. The cleaner must be fully dried before laying out the electronic surgical equipment. Otherwise, the vapors can ignite, causing a sudden flash fire.

The article brings up the recent case of Janice McCall, a 65 year old woman who sustained fatal injuries from a surgical fire in a hospital in Illinois. She was badly burned before operating room staff could put out the fire; no one else was injured. Ms. McCall was rushed to another hospital in Tennessee with severe burns and died six days later.

The Indiana Injury Law Blog has posted an article about "internal factors" that cause doctors to make fatal medical errors. A Mayo Clinic study has shown that the amount of medical mistakes made by residents increases with the doctor's stress and fatigue. The study followed 430 medical residents who were questioned every three months from 2003 to 2008 about their stress levels, burnout, sleepiness, fatigue, depression and the number of medical errors they made.

• Out of 370 residents who answered questions about medical errors, 39 percent admitted that they had made at least one major medical error. • There was also a connection between these medical errors and tiredness. The researchers found that for every single point increase in fatigue, the resident's chances of making a medical error increased by 14 percent. • Also, for every single point increase in the sleepiness score, the chances of making an error increased by 10 percent. • Besides sleepiness and fatigue, medical errors were also more frequently seen in doctors suffering from depression, or experiencing burnout symptoms.

Clearly, a doctor's quality of life is directly related to how he/she will care for patients. Every year approximately 100,000 people die from "preventable medical errors" in the U.S.

The Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article that discusses how elderly nursing home residents are often put at risk by other residents who are mentally ill or convicted felons. Robert Kreisman, the author of this article, is specifically gearing this article to residents of Illinois, but it certainly contains valuable information for everyone.

Nursing homes often assure people that the psychiatric patients and patients with criminal backgrounds are kept separated from the elderly and "infirm", but...

this does not always prevent the nursing home residents from coming to harm. There have been reports of elderly residents being attacked, injured, or raped by some of the mentally ill residents or those who are convicted felons.

Kreisman also says that the methods used to "identify residents with a criminal history tend to be faulty." Background checks are often performed after the resident has been admitted. These checks seldom identify all kinds of crime and often make the felon look less dangerous than they actually are.

A perfect example of this dilemma is Maplewood Care, where in one instance a 78 year-old was allegedly punched in the face by another resident after that same resident allegedly struck and bruised a 75 year-old patient. Obviously there had not been appropriate monitoring and assessment after the first incident to prevent the recurrence of this nursing home abuse. Among Maplewood Care's roughly 200 residents there are 15 convicted felons, and over 40% of the population has a diagnosis of mental illness.

These new reports are extremely disturbing for those of us who are making decisions about placement of our loved ones in Illinois nursing homes. Nursing homes can be a necessary step for elderly residents who are no longer able to provide for themselves. But placing elderly people with medical needs in an environment where they are more at risk for being harmed is not the answer.

The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article about "jarring" statistics linking cell phone use to automobile accidents. Using data supplied by a Washington Post article, the blog post says that 342,000 accidents are caused annually by people being distracted by cell phones while driving. This also results in 2,600 fatalities and...

$43 billion each year in property damage, lost wages, medical bills and fatalities.

The Washington Post cited these statistics:

Cellphone users are up to four times more likely to be in a traffic accident, and the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated in 2003 that their use was a factor in 6 percent of accidents. That translated to 636,000 crashes resulting in 12,000 serious injuries and 2,600 deaths.

Truck drivers are at far greater risk when they reach for their phones, according to a recent study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. They are at almost six times greater risk when dialing and 23 times greater when texting.

In 2003 there were roughly 240,000 accidents and 940 fatalities from cell phone use while driving. This is clearly a problem on the rise.