October 2011 Archives

Marion Hedges was with her 14-year-old son on the ground floor of an East Harlem garage when a shopping cart fell four stories crashing on top of her.

Hedges was critically injured and remains unconscious at a Harlem Hospital, reports the New York Post. Her son was not injured.

Kaitlyn Nelson, a 24-year-old woman from Brooklyn, won a $60 million judgment for a botched acid reflux operation.

The woman received the surgery at Maimonides Hospital in December 2000, when she was just 13, and as a result, Nelson's stomach is now paralyzed, reports the New York Post.

Halloween is the time of year when masked children storm the city streets in search of candy. Sounds scary doesn't it? Thankfully, there are trick or treating safety tips that parents can exercise in keeping their kids safe.

Here are just a few that parents can think about to make Halloween a bit les scary for them, and still fun for their little monsters:

A seven-pound dog was smacked out a third-story window on a failed NYPD drug raid. The little pooch amazingly survived, and now its owners are suing the cops for damages for the dog smack.

The police reportedly had a warrant to enter the home of Iris Ramos on suspicions of drug charges. When the cops stormed in, they encountered a bevy of family members and a small barking dog, reports the New York Post.

Private Transportation Corp. runs a Brooklyn bus line for Orthodox Jews. According to the bus company's practice, women passengers are required to ride in the back of the bus.

Letting the company know that we are fifty years removed from the 1960s, the city department of transportation fired off a letter to the Orthodox Jewish bus company telling it to stop segregating, reports the New York Post.

NYPD cop Michael Daragjati was arrested this week for allegedly fabricating criminal charges against a black man. This was not the first time that Daragjati has been accused of fabricating charges against someone due to race.

In 2005, Daragjati arrested Wagner College baseball player Jared Williams. At the time, Williams had dreams of becoming a major league baseball player as he was scouted by several professional teams, reports the New York Daily News. However, those dreams ended when Williams was kicked off his college team due to the arrest.

Family members of Elizabeth Delfini are planning to sue Woodlawn Cemetery for allegedly misplacing her remains. The Woodlawn Cemetery lawsuit would seek damages for the missing remains as the family now has nowhere to go to pay its respects.

Delfini was 88-years-old when she died in February, reports CBS. Her family took her ashes to the Bronx cemetery so that she could be interred next to her husband with a stone tabled inscribed in both their names.

Police suspect that an Upper East Side dog attack may have led to a man’s death.

City marshals showed up at an apartment on East 62nd Street to evict the tenant, reports the New York Post. They found a bloodbath instead.

When the marshals entered the third-floor apartment they found the unidentified victim lying on a blood-soaked kitchen floor. He had a cut above his eye and bite marks on his arm and leg, reports the Post.

In August, we wrote that a group of law school grads were suing the New York Law School for fraud. These law school grads were more than just litigious young attorneys practicing their craft. Instead, they alleged that New York Law School was part of a law school scam, where schools touted lofty employment potential and six-figure salaries to lure students out of their money.

Now, attorneys representing the graduates have indicated that the lawsuit may be expanding as they plan to add graduates from 15 more schools, including five schools from New York, reports the New York Post.

Jersey Shore castoff Angelina Pivarnick says that she was attacked inside a Hot Topic store and is now suing the alleged attacker and Hot Topic. But the Jersey Shore Angelina fight and lawsuit could backfire on the reality TV star.

Perhaps best known for her fight against Snooki on season 2 of the MTV show, Pivarnick was apparently involved in a real-life fight at the Staten Island Mall last year, reports the New York Post. Pivarnick and her friend were shopping at Hot Topic when a group of youths approached them starting trouble. A fight broke out and one of the youths, Kelsey Balzafiore, was arrested and charged for battering Pivarnick’s friend.

Helicopter pilot Paul Dudley said that as soon as he took off, he noticed “mechanical problems” with the aircraft that caused him to lose control and crash into the East River. However, federal investigators may not be buying his story as they have now ruled out engine failure as the cause of the fatal helicopter accident.

Dudley took a group of family friends on a helicopter ride in Manhattan. However, shortly after takeoff, Dudley says that he experienced mechanical problems and attempted to land. Dudley lost control of the aircraft and crashed into the East River. One of his passengers, Sonia Marra, died in the crash. Another, Helen Tamaki, remains in critical condition.

Sonia Marra, a 40-year-old tourist from Australia, was the sole fatality in the East River helicopter accident.

On Tuesday afternoon, Paul Dudley, an experienced helicopter pilot planned to take a family friends on a helicopter ride departing from Manhattan, reports The New York Times. But soon after taking off at the East 34th Street Heliport along the East River, the helicopter experienced problems and Dudley lost control, crashing into the river.

A drunk subway accident was averted early this morning at the Union Square station. An unidentified drunk man fell onto the northbound Q train tracks at about 4:30 in the morning, reports the The New York Post. Luckily, the man was pulled out before a train struck him.

Previously, we have written about liability that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) could face for injuries and death on the subway. The agency has a duty to make the subways reasonably safe, and as there is usually nothing separating a crowded train platform from a speeding train, injuries may be expected.