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What Happened Before Man Jumped Off The Carnival Sensation

Eddie Farah — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:34:35 GMT

Martha Jackson, a passenger on the Carnival Sensation, returning from four nights in the Bahamas, heard the splash.

A 34-year-old unidentified man from Philadelphia jumped from his sixth-deck suite aboard the Sensation late Wednesday and into the Atlantic waters off Port St. Lucie. He was reportedly celebrating his wedding anniversary.

Johnny Gonzales of the U.S. Coast Guard says the man was lucky – he knew how to swim and was wearing a white T-shirt which made him easier to see under a full moon. The man was treated for back injuries and a mental evaluation.

Florida Today reports on what happened before the jump.

The man and his wife had been arguing. the wife now says. The husband had been battling severe depression and had been drinking. Earlier reports were that he threatened to jump and she said, “Go Ahead.”

The wife says she came out of the bathroom and found her husband teetering on the balcony before he jumped. Lucky for him, Carnival knew he was in the water, sent out an alert to boats in the area and the Disney Wonder picked him up.

The man was reported to be “physically exhausted" after treading water for about an hour and a half before being brought to the hospital.

The Cruise Junkie Web site reports that in 2009 so far, Carnival has had eight people overboard, topping the list as the cruise line with the most passengers and crew overboard, not only this year but with 38 since 2000.

Carnival says that’s because they carry more passengers than any other cruise line.

Muggings, rapes, overboards are just some of what can happen in rare cases aboard cruise liners. Many things you have no control over, while others you do.

Be sure to read the fine print of your ticket, which is your cruise contract.

Especially, if you have any preexisting medical condition, look at paragraph 4C of your cruise contract. It lets the cruise line off the hook for any liability since the doctor is an independent contractor, usually licensed to practice medicine in a country outside of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

That is very convenient for the 60 billion dollar cruise industry, but could mean you have no recourse for shoddy medical treatment or no medical treatment at all when you most need it. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Brace For Impact- Would You Know What To Do In An Airplane Ditching?

Eddie Farah — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:33:57 GMT

"Brace For Impact,” are the last words you want to hear when you are on an airplane.

But that is exactly what was said to the 148 passengers onboard a US Airways A320 airbus leaving New York’s LaGuardia Airport Thursday. The plane made a remarkably soft landing on water and amazingly everyone got off with a few broken limbs and hypothermia.

Would you know what to do if you heard those words?

A water landing is called a “ditching” and CBS News Friday visited with a flight training center that trains people on what to do during a ditching. The crew is trained to keep you alive and the plane is made to withstand the impact of a ditching.

At this point it is very important to listen to the words of the crew. Remain calm and when the flight attendant tells you to put on your seat belt, tighten them and then don your lifejacket, you are to do just that. Do not inflate the vest.

Prepare for impact by bending over and grabbing your ankles and holding on. When the plane hits the water it’s all about getting out fast.

Flight crews are trained to evacuate a plane in 90 seconds, reports CBS, though it is hard to imagine that a jumbo jet can be evacuated that quickly. That means you don’t have time to retrieve your laptop from the overhead. A flight attendant will tell you where to go and escort you as quickly. Leg through the opening, then your body, then the other leg. After you are out of the plane is the time to inflate your life vest.

Luckily Flight 1549 had passengers onboard who were fairly mobile or in the case of infants, had parents who were, and nearby ferries quickly got to the passengers before the frigid conditions got to them.

Passengers were advised not to panic again when getting aboard the ferries as many started scrambling to the ladder at the same time.

Next time you’re on the plane, you might read those safety manuals in the seatback pockets - they contain all of this information. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

New School Bus Rules Protect Manufacturers

Eddie Farah — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:34:13 GMT

NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, issued new rules this week that will improve the nation’s 474,000 school buses. Seat and shoulder belts will be required on small school buses. The requirement will also change seat backs making them four inches higher in all new buses.

Seats must also come equipped with safety latches that can be flipped up or removed without resorting to special tools. That’s the good news.

But something is missing. NHTSA will not require seat belts in the kind of large school buses that most children ride in, despite research that shows it would prevent about 1,900 injuries a year. Instead NHTSA set standards for the seat belts, should states decide to order them.

Whenever the federal government sets standards these days, unfortunately we know what's coming. It's called federal pre-emption and is increasingly being used to shield manufacturers from any product liability IF they follow the federal standards.

Public Citizen, the consumer group, doesn’t like the omission of seat belts from large buses.

President, Joan Claybrook, who was the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977-81, says Public Citizen also doesn't like NHTSAs plans to immunize manufacturers from personal injury liability.

It's all there in the fine print on page 123 of the rule:

“State requirements imposed on motor vehicle manufacturers including sanctions imposed by State tort law, can stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of a NHTSA safety standard,” the rule says.

In other words, federal law trumps a state product liability lawsuit.

So in the final days of the Bush administration we are seeing a spike in pre-emption language and these new school bus rules are included. Once again, if a manufacturer follows the federal standard, they are shielded from lawsuits for injuries related to that product.

Lawsuits can force manufacturers to provide the toughest standards, out of fear, if for no other reason.

The language in the ruling is good news for the manufacturers, but very bad news for our school children.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

CSX Train Lawsuit Follows Teen Death On Trestle

Eddie Farah — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:36:00 GMT

CSX Train Lawsuit Follows Teen Death On Trestle

by Eddie Farah

A 17-year old Clay County High School football player, Wesley Whiddon Jr., who was struck and killed by a train lastmonth, was doing what many people in the Black Creek area regularly do -- fish from the railroad bridge.

Whiddon was killed May 14, when he could not escape the CSX train that rounded a corner traveling about 35 to 40 mph. His two friends managed to jump off the trestle that is suspended over Black Creek.

Now his mother is suingCSX, and its senior road foreman of engines for her son's wrongful death.

The lawsuit says that the railroad did not have the area properly closed or fenced off or adequate warning signs about the dangers of walking near the trestle. Local news, Channel 4, reports that four trespassing signs are posted at either end of the trestle.

The lawsuit also claims that the train was going at an excessive speed and that Whiddon didn’t have enough time to get away before being struck. But the conductor says he was not traveling at an excessive speed andhe thought the boys would jump off the tracks as people usually do. When that didn’t happen, he says he applied the emergency brake.

Since 1990, about 5,000 people have been killed by walking along railroad tracks and at crossings, according to the nonprofit group, Operation Lifesaver.

These unfortunate accidents remind us that train tracks are not the place for pedestrians, ATVs or cars. And trestles are never wide enough for both you and the entire width of the train, nor is a train tunnel.

This unfortunate young man and his family are suffering a loss which serves as a reminder to us all - That railroad tracks are for trains.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

School Bus Driver Kicks Kids Off

Eddie Farah — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:07:00 GMT

This Jacksonville school bus driver had simply had enough. Several Ribault Middle School students were messing around on the bus, threatening to open the emergency door on the back of the bus.

A student, Kaylan Edem, admitted to Channel 4 that kids were disorderly and that students on the bus kept pulling the emergency handle. The bus driver threatened twice, then pulled over and told kids to exit the bus.

"The second when time they did it, she stopped right down there and said, 'Get off,'" Edem said. "I was pretty mad because I didn't feel like walking and she's supposed to take us to our correct stop, and it was inappropriate for her to just do that."

So Edem and a bunch of other kids were dropped at an elementary school two miles away. Students then had few options, walk back to their old school, call their parents, or try to walk home.

Edem’s mother was called by her daughter to pick her up. Lisa Jackson says,
“When we leave our children in the care of school officials, whether it’s a bus driver or a teacher, we expect for them to be safe, and at this day at this moment my student was not safe.”

First Student, the bus company, will have videotape onboard the bus to tell them what happened. The driver could have pulled over, called police, or taken the kids back to their school where parents would then have to deal with the problem.

Leaving them to find their own way home is unforgivable and against the rules of the Duval County School District. Fortunately no one was injured in this incident. The county just dodged a bullet. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Missing Woman At Sea

Eddie Farah — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 23:25:00 GMT

Millions of people go on cruises every year and have a wonderful time.

Then there are the mysteries at sea which are difficult to solve, largely because no one is watching.

The latest mystery involves a Florida woman, Jennifer Ellis-Seitz, 36, a journalist who apparently had everything to live for. She had married a year earlier, had just lost 130 pounds, was anxious to start a family, and had lined up a new job.

On Christmas day she plunged off the 15-story cruise ship, Norwegian Pearl, into the waters off Cancun. She hasn’t been seen since. A surveillance camera captured someone wearing a bathrobe falling overboard Thursday night, but it was six hours later - about 2 a.m. - before Ellis-Seitz’s husband and her mother began looking for her. Almost 5 a.m. he reported her missing.

Talking to the Today show, a couple who befriended the two said the husband had a bag of coins and was headed off to the casino that night to “see if he could change his luck.”

Now her family thinks she may have committed suicide.

Passengers need to be very careful they don't become a victim at sea. Generally, too much time passes before anyone knows there is a problem and a search begins. There was reportedly an 11-hour gap between the fall and efforts to find her at sea.

There were no announcements or cabin checks on board. Passengers learned of the death when they saw the news onboard. There is no one carefully watching surveillance cameras and no alarms that go off when someone goes overboard.

Cruise lines are not required to report deaths, but they happen.

The Naples News in February 2007 reported that among 12 million people who take cruises ever year, 97 cruise ship deaths from 1999-2007, recorded by the Broward County Coroner’s office.

From 2004-to-2007 Miami reported 33 deaths. Many people die from natural causes at sea, as many elderly retirees take cruises. Others remain mysteries, and those are just the statistics from two Florida ports.

Ships are all registered to foreign countries so they do not have to follow U.S. law or regulations. This is not an accident – it is intentional and a way to avoid liability.

Make sure you read the fine print on your ticket. Understand that the doctor on board is not an employee of the cruise line. Find out about security and surveillance cameras and whether anyone is watching them.

A vacation is not a time to worry – but nor is as time to entirely let your guard down. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

8-Year-Old Girl Dies In Florida School Bus Accident

Eddie Farah — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:01:00 GMT

It is truly a parent's worst nightmare.

School has been in session in Florida for nearly a week and in Tallahassee a school bus, a minivan, and a cement mixer truck collided this week killing an eight-year-old girl onboard the bus.

Seven other children were injured Friday afternoon on a bus, owned by a Boys and Girls Club. It was transporting 27 Tallahassee, Florida area students from Apalachee Elementary School to the club.

A cement truck rear-ended the bus while it stopped at a red light, waiting in the left-turn lane. The impact tipped the truck to its side and caused the bus to run into a minivan in front if it. 8-year-old Roshay Dugans died at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. The other injured students were treated and released. Parent Angela Williams rushed to the scene. “My son and my niece are very, very, very traumatized,” Williams said to the Sun-Sentinel. “My son is covered in –he has blood –someone else’s blood. He said the little girl next to him was hurt really, really bad.”

There is no word tonight on whether the cement truck driver will be cited or why he hit the school bus, but parents and likely their attorneys will be asking what happened and why. Given a General Accounting Office report this summer on the high number of bus drivers who also qualify for disability coverage, the family needs to be asking whether either driver of the school bus or cement truck should have even been issued a commercial license to drive a bus.

All of that is still too early to tell now. Our condolences to the families of the little children involved.

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Headphones, Pedestrians and Railroad Tracks Don't Mix

Eddie Farah — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:35:44 GMT

This is a very sad story to report out of Auburndale, Florida.

An 18-year-old high school student was walking along Amtrak train tracks wearing headphones and apparently didn’t hear an approaching train traveling from Miami to New York.

The conductor says he tried to alert Robert Lopez with no response. When the train got within 20 feet of Lopez, he tried to jump off the track, but it was too late. Lopez was pronounced dead at the scene.

Our condolences go out to his family for this very tragic and avoidable accident.

This is not an isolated incident.

Just last week, a 24-year-old man was struck and killed by a train in Litchfield, Minnesota. His headphones and music player were found at the scene.

In February, a 17-year-old teen was hit and killed by an Amtrak train near his Comstock Township home in Michigan. He was crossing the tracks diagonally with his back to the eastbound train and was also wearing headphones.

No matter where you are or what your are doing, it is illegal to trespass on a railroad right-of-way outside of the designated crossing areas.

In 2008, there were 2,395 grade crossing incidents nationwide.

In Florida, there were 26 pedestrian rail trespass deaths in 2008, one of the highest in the nation.

The Florida chapter of the nonprofit rail safety group, Operation Lifesaver has launched our state's public awareness campaign to bring a “Common Sense” message to the public and reduce the number of pedestrians fatalities at rail tracks. Whether texting, talking on the phone or wearing headphones, the best advice is stay away from tracks- its just common sense.

In order to attract attention of the 18-34 age range, most likely to be killed on the tracks, the campaign includes an interactive Web site, videos and internet ads. See: www.CommonSenseUseIt.com

Other than a public crossing area- if you use the tracks to fish, take an ATV, or walk, you are trespassing.

If you need to cross the track – do so only at public crossing designated areas. Look for the crossbuck sign. Forget the cellphones and headphones when you are near the train tracks.

Modern trains are quieter than they used to be. Be sure to look both ways before crossing. You can expect a train at any time. There is no way you will be able to outrun it. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Disney Discovery Denied In Monorail Death

Eddie Farah — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:52:35 GMT

Lawyers representing the mother of the 21-year-old pilot of a Disney monorail ,who died July 5, have been denied the opportunity to inspect all of the evidence into the death of Austin Wuennenberg.

The evidence would include video from surveillance cameras on the platform at the time of the crash as well as any audio communication or black box data recorders from the platform. That is the location where monorail workers would have been when the command for the pink train was given for it to move into reverse. The pink train crashed into the purple train, piloted by Austin. But Wednesday the petition to inspect the evidence so far was denied by an Orange County judge.

Attorney Chris Searcy had filed a Petition for a Pure Bill of Discovery that allows evidence to be turned over before a lawsuit is filed. Searcy also sought a list of witnesses and employees involved in the early morning operation of the monorail. The concern is that evidence may disappear at some point so Disney has been ordered not to destroy potential evidence in a civil case, which would be against the law.

Every night the monorails are brought into the shop for maintenance. In moving onto beams taking the train into a shop in the back, the monorails are supposed to go to a switch. Insiders say that in order to get to the back, the anti-collision system must be disabled. Instead of heading to the shop in back, the pink train may have gone in the opposite direction to the Transportation and Ticket Center.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Administration are both conducting investigations which could take up to a year.

Attraction Magazine is reporting that on Wuennenberg’s Facebook page he wrote that he “has a 14 hour shift today” raising the questions about fatigue of the crew.

A man claiming to be the OSHA investigator in the case (complete with his photo and phone number and e-mail) says on the Facebook page, he is interested “if Disney changed any procedures. Some of the other areas I am interested is past accidents, past close calls, issues having to use monorails that are broken, communication issues”.

If a lawsuit is filed on behalf of Christine Wuennenberg, worker’s compensation law in Florida limits compensation to $150,000, but that is for dependants of those injured or killed, a parent would not qualify. The injured has to prove the employer deliberately intended to injure the employee or the employer engaged in conduct that was virtually certain to result in injury and death and failed to warn the employee.

That is an extremely high standard of proof required, even beyond mere negligence. Our condolences go out to the family of this young man who was simply working his way through college. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah

Two Federal Investigations Into Disney

Eddie Farah — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:30:12 GMT

With Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) already conducting a probe, now the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has announced it too will examine the fatal monorail collision that took the life of a young train operator at Disney World in Orlando Sunday morning.

21-year-old Austin Wuennenberg died in what was described by witnesses as a “head-on collision” between two trains, which occurred as the park was closing. We are so sorry for the loss of this young man who was about to graduate from Stetson University in Deland, Florida with a degree in computer science.

OSHA is looking into whether any safety rules were broken. Neither train is supposed to be able to get that close to one another, indicating either a malfunction or human error in the central dispatch area.

Disney has been responsible for the oversight over transportation on the property and so far in the history of the monorail has a clean record, but after reviewing a preliminary report, the NTSB decided to get involved. Disney has traditionally not been known for letting out too many company secrets on its properties.

OSHA gave Disney the okay to begin running the monorail system again on Monday which takes about 150,000 guests to their destination on a typical day. Let’s hope that we get some answers before the end of what’s expected to be a six month investigation, so Disney can make sure this never happens again. #

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Eddie Farah