South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

A construction set meant for children three and up has been recalled due to the possibility of magnets in the toy falling out and becoming ingested. The recalled toy is the Battat Magnabild Magnetic Building Systems. The product was sold in stores around the country for a retail price around $30. This recall involves the 293-piece (item number BB1502H) and the 180-piece (item number BB1431H) Magnabild Magnetic Building System sets. Both sets come in rotating display cases that contain 1-inch and 4-inch rods with magnets, curved 1-inch rods, triangle and square pieces with magnets, square-shaped plastic building pieces, triangles and 5-sided pieces, and metal balls. The pieces come in different colors. All of the plastic building pieces, except the 4-inch flexible rods, have the word “Magnabild” in raised lettering on them. The item number is found on a hang tag attached to the set. The product is designed for children older than three years.

If more than one magnet is swallowed they can attract to each other inside the body causing internal blockage or tears. There have been reports of injury and death with other magnet toys. There have been no reports with this toy. The company is offering a free replacement to anyone that owns this toy.

An off-duty Miami-Dade police officer is in critical condition after he was injured in a crash while riding his motorcycle on Florida’s Turnpike. The crash occurred Wednesday night just west of Interstate 75 in northwest Miami-Dade County.Police said two off-duty officers were riding their motorcycles side by side at the time. The second officer was not hurt.

The turnpike was shut down in both directions while the officer was prepped and airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

A 16-year-old high school student is hospitalized with head injuries after being hit by a car on his way to school Wednesday morning. It happened shortly before 7:30 a.m. at the intersection of Foster Road and Northwest Ninth Avenue.”The student was in the crosswalk,” said Hallandale police spokesman Andrew Casper.

The vehicle was heading east on Foster Road. The teenager was crossing from north to south across Foster Road when he was struck.

The driver, who remained at the scene, “is facing charges,” said Casper.

Why the driver hit the teenager is still under investigation.

Hallandale Beach police are not releasing the identity of the driver or student.

The student was on his way Hallandale High School.

A new lawsuit has been filed against Merck & Co. over its osteoporosis drug Fosamax. The suit claims the drug caused a Connecticut woman to suffer multiple stress fractures in her legs as well as suppressed bone regeneration.

Merck is already facing hundreds of Fosamax lawsuits claiming the drug caused a rare and disfiguring condition known as osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ), or decay of the jawbone.

Fosamax is one of Merck’s top-selling drugs, generating nearly $3 billion in sales last year alone.

In November, the company announced a $4.85 settlement to cover tens of thousands of Vioxx lawsuits. Merck pulled Vioxx from the market in 2004 when evidence showed the drug caused potentially deadly heart problems.

East Bridgewater - The Rockland woman who crashed her car into Brockton Hospital in October, killing an East Bridgewater woman and a doctor, has been charged with two counts of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation.

The charges were lodged against Jane Berghold, 76, on Friday, following a closed evidence hearing at Brockton District Court this past week.

She will be arraigned on Feb. 21.

According to police reports released Friday, Berghold ‘‘appeared to have depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal,’’ causing the car to crash through the front doors of the hospital’s radiation therapy center.

The crash claimed the lives of Susan Plante, 59, of East Bridgewater, a secretary at the radiation unit, and Dr. Mark A. Vasa, 58, of Norwell, chief of radiation therapy at Brockton Hospital. Two other employees - a physician and a radiation therapist - suffered less serious injuries.

Berghold, a breast cancer patient, had been driving to the hospital to consult with doctors about radiation treatment when the crash occurred on the afternoon of Oct. 15.

At the closed hearing, held on Tuesday, a clerk magistrate determined that there is enough evidence to charge Berghold with two counts of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and one count of negligent operation by a motor vehicle, court records show.

The charge of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation is a misdemeanor, and under state law is punishable by a sentence of between 30 days and 2-1/2 years.

‘‘You can take my law degree off the wall’’ if she goes to prison, said Kevin Reddington, a well-known Brockton defense attorney who is representing Berghold. ‘‘That’s not going to happen.’’

Reddington said he will seek a quick resolution of the case.

‘‘I don’t think delay is going to work to anyone’s advantage,’’ he said.

‘‘My client is an elderly woman who is very ill, and who feels very, very badly about what happened here.’’

‘‘She has been in a very serious state of depression after this,’’ Reddington said.

Along with the criminal charges, Berghold faces a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit filed by Vasa’s widow, Kathleen Vasa of Norwell.

For rabid fans of the New York Giants and New England Patriots, this Sunday’s Super Bowl won’t be just a game. It may be a health hazard.Heart attacks and other cardiac emergencies doubled in Munich, Germany, when that nation’s soccer team played in World Cup matches, a new study reports.

While history suggests European soccer fans can get a bit more worked up than the average American football fan, doctors think there are some valid warnings to be shared.

“I know a little bit about the Super Bowl,” study author Dr. Gerhard Steinbeck of Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich said in a telephone interview. “It’s reasonable to think that something quite similar might happen.”

He and his colleagues present their results in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. They blamed emotional stress for the heart problems, but they note that lack of sleep, overeating, wolfing down junk food, boozing and smoking might have played a role too.

Previous studies suggest that events like earthquakes and war can boost the risk of heart problems. Findings for soccer have been inconsistent.

The new work “confirms something people have been highly skeptical about … that soccer (would) produce that kind of emotional investment that might trigger a heart attack,” said psychologist Douglas Carroll of the University of Birmingham in England.

“People who are not interested in sport find it very difficult to comprehend this,” said Carroll, who in 2002 reported a link between World Cup soccer and heart attacks in England.

The new paper included heart attacks, cardiac arrests, episodes of irregular heartbeat and activations of automatic implanted defibrillators. The researchers noted the number of cases reported in the greater Munich area during World Cup competition in Germany in the summer of 2006. They compared that to the totals for similar periods in 2003 and 2005, and for several weeks before and after the tournament.

In all, the study included 4,279 patients. Analysis showed that on the seven days when the German team played, the overall number of cardiac emergencies was more than double the norm. For men, it tripled.

The effect was strongest in people with known heart disease. So on Super Bowl Sunday, such people and others with known risks for heart disease - like high blood pressure or diabetes - should take extra care of themselves, said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

She said that means:

- Take medications as prescribed.

- Avoid tobacco smoke and fatty meals.

- Get plenty of sleep the night before.

- Don’t over-exert yourself physically.

- If you drink alcohol, limit yourself to one drink for a woman and two for a man.

- Try “not to get too angry with the refs.”

People with known heart conditions should also keep their nitroglycerin and aspirin handy, she said.

And if heart symptoms appear, she said, call emergency services right away. “Don’t just chew that aspirin and think it’ll go away.”

In fact, research by Dr. David Jerrard, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland, indicates that some men do put off seeking emergency treatment if they’re watching a game.

On a typical Super Bowl Sunday, “the number of patients waiting to be seen dries up dramatically,” Jerrard said. But delaying that visit to stick with a sportscast is a bad idea, especially for people with a history of heart trouble, he says.

“Much of the chest pain or upper abdominal pain that people might be experiencing is mostly likely related to the food they’re eating, the alcohol they’re ingesting,” he said. “But of course, you never know.”

On Sept. 6, 2006, plaintiff’s decedent Glenn Garvin, 49, an endodontist, was riding his bicycle in the bicycle lane on Westlake Boulevard near Cresthaven Drive in Thousand Oaks, when he was hit by a sedan driven by Norma Seigel. Garvin was fatally injured.Garvin’s widow and two minor sons sued Seigel, claiming that her negligence caused the accident.

Seigel, 82, was driving in the lane closest to the bicycle lane at the time of the accident. Witnesses to the event said they saw her swerve into the bicycle lane and crash into Garvin with enough force to cause him to be ejected from the bicycle, smash onto the windshield of the sedan, and be projected about 60 feet before his body hit the road.

Garvin, who was a volunteer traffic safety officer for the city of Thousand Oaks, was wearing his helmet. The bicycle lane had recently been painted and the road had been repaved and was well marked.

Seigel admitted liability for the accident.

Garvin suffered severe head injuries in the accident and was taken immediately to Los Robles Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

At the time of his death, Garvin’s annual income as an endodontist was about $750,000. He was the primary provider for the family.

Garvin’s widow and sons, ages 12 and 16, stated that their family was extremely close. The plaintiffs claimed to have lost the moral advice and protection the children would have received if Garvin were alive.

The plaintiffs sought loss of support damages to be in the range of $5.5 million to $7.5 million and unspecified amounts for for their loss of care, comfort and society.

The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding them $12,513,440, including economic damages of $7,513,439 and noneconomic damages of $5,000,001.

After trial, the defendant stipulated to costs of $25,032.25, bringing the total verdict to $12,538,472.25.

The verdict was paid by Seigel’s insurer, Allstate.

Elder Son Garvin

$1,666,667 Personal Injury: Non-Economic Damages

Pamela Garvin

$7,513,439 Personal Injury: Economic Damages

$1,666,667 Personal Injury: Non-Economic Damages

$25,032 Personal Injury: Costs

Younger Son Garvin

$1,666,667 Personal Injury: Non-Econmic Damages

A tire maker sued in a fatal crash involving students from Utah State University is fighting an order to surrender documents related to its products.Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. is asking the federal appeals court in Denver to overturn a ruling from the federal court in Salt Lake City.

Cooper Tire of Findlay, Ohio, said it would cost $1.4 million - and take 10 weeks - for a dozen lawyers to sort through the pertinent documents from as many as 1.5 million pieces of paper.

“This scope is broader than has ever been applied to Cooper in any product-liability lawsuit,” the company said.

Eight Utah State students and an instructor died Sept. 26, 2005, when the van carrying them back to Logan from a field trip crashed near Tremonton.

The families of seven victims are suing Cooper Tire, saying bad tires had a role. The van maker, Chrysler LLC, recently settled with the families. No details were disclosed.

“Cooper was not to blame for the accident,” company vice president Patricia Brown said. “When consumers buy a Cooper tire, they are choosing a safe, reliable and quality-engineered product.”

Lisa Pasbjerg, a paralegal in Florida who has worked on cases against Cooper Tire, said U.S. trial lawyers are watching the Utah case. She is not involved.

The families have “gotten some fabulous District Court rulings. It’s such a monster case,” Pasbjerg said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Warner said the families’ theory about bad tires is a wide one.

“Plaintiffs … should be permitted to engage in discovery that has a similarly broad focus,” Warner wrote in a decision that was upheld by another judge.

Whether any information will be shared with a jury will be decided later, he said.

Brown said the company only seeks to protect commercial and trade secrets. The appeals court will hear arguments March 18.

Doctors and nurses on the go often skip soap and water in favor of an alcohol-based hand gel, thinking the quick-acting goo will kill bacteria on their hands and curb the spread of infection. It turns out that’s not enough.In a Nebraska hospital, medical workers nearly doubled their use of the alcohol-based gel, but their generally cleaner hands had no bearing on the rate of infections among patients.

The doctor who studied the problem pointed to many villains: Rings and fingernails that are too long and hard to clean, poor handling of catheters and treatment areas that aren’t sanitized.

“Hand hygiene is still important, but it’s not a panacea,” said Dr. Mark Rupp, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He led the study at the adjoining Nebraska Medical Center.

The results of his study appear to contradict hospital guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that say better hand hygiene - through frequent washing or use of hand gels - has been shown to cut the spread of hospital infections.

The spread of infection-causing germs in U.S. hospitals is a huge health problem, accounting for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths each year, according to the CDC. These include drug-resistant staph, urinary tract infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, among others.

“There are many factors that influence the development of hospital-acquired infections. It would be naive to think that a single, simple intervention would fix this problem,” Rupp said.

His study appears in the January issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

Research has shown alcohol-based hand gels are more effective, faster and easier to use than soap and water. The findings of the new study were based on 300 hours of hand hygiene observations of nurses and doctors in two comparable intensive care units over a two-year period.

More gel dispensers were put in the units, and usage rose from 37 percent to 68 percent in one unit and from 38 percent to 69 percent in the other. Compliance for hand washing of any kind in most hospitals is estimated to be about 40 percent, according to experts, although some hospitals do better.

Every two months, bacteria samples were taken from health workers’ hands, which were found to be cleaner when using the alcohol gel.

The infection rates in both ICUs were “relatively low,” the study said. And researchers found “no significant relationship” between rates of hand gel use and infections among patients. In fact, in one unit the infection rate rose when the hand gel was widely available and its use promoted.

Rupp found the results surprising. However, he said hospital-borne infections cannot be stopped by better hand hygiene alone because infections aren’t limited to person-to-person contact.

He suggested hand gels be combined with other measures, such as better cleaning of hospital units, proper insertion and maintenance of catheters, and doctors prescribing antibiotics only when necessary so more drug-resistant bacteria don’t pop up.

He also said hospital workers shouldn’t wear rings and should trim their fingernails even more than the CDC recommendation of no longer than a quarter of an inch. Rupp said bacteria showed up when nails extended just beyond the fingertip.

Mike Bell, who deals with infection control at the CDC, said that while he didn’t agree that hand gels do little to reduce infection, Rupp was right to say they were just one part of the solution.

“If they don’t do everything else right, having clean hands is not enough,” he said.

Both Bell and Dr. David Hooper of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston suggested that Rupp’s study would have shown a reduction in infections if it was conducted over a longer period.

Hooper said the compliance rate for hand hygiene at Massachusetts General has been about 90 percent for the past several years. The number of drug-resistant staph cases was cut in half and continues to decline, he said.

A train derailed on a bridge early Wednesday as it traveled in high winds through northern Ohio, sending up to four cars plunging into the water below.There were no immediate reports of injuries, but officials were concerned that at least one of the cars in the water was carrying hazardous materials.

Authorities believed the train cars were blown off the bridge at about 4:15 a.m. by high winds, said Ottawa County Sheriff Robert Bratton. Gusts of up to 50 miles per hour were recorded across the region overnight.

The rail bridge runs between the Sandusky area in Erie County and the Ottawa County peninsula in the northern portion of the state. The area is about 60 miles west of Toledo.