Florida Child Injury Law Blog

Posts Tagged ‘florida’

In a heartbreaking accident  in Titusville this month, a 19-month-old boy was killed when he fell from a trailer being pulled by a riding lawn mower and was then struck by the mower.  The child’s grandmother was driving the mower, according to several media outlets. The toddler was taken to Parrish Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

 This case is still under investigation and the names of those involved are being withheld.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that about 75 people are killed annually and about 20,000 are injured on or near riding lawnmowers and garden tractors. One out of every five of those fatalities is a child. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2001 article in the journal Pediatrics, which was reaffirmed in 2010, states that “many of these injuries can be achieved by 1) design changes of lawn mowers to enhance safety, 2) appropriate age and maturity guidelines for mower operation, and 3) education of parents, other child caregivers, and children regarding the hazards associated with lawn mowers.”

Florida Child Injury lawyer Jim Dodson provides this information to increase consumer safety and awareness. It does not imply that an attorney client relationship exists nor is it to be considered legal advice to any viewer.

At the law office of Clearwater Child Injury Attorney James W. Dodson, we all too often encounter cases where children have been injured traveling to and from school.  We envision a world in which all children are free from harm, and child safety is the rule. Florida is part of the nationwide Safe Routes to School initiative.

What Safe Routes to School Hopes to Achieve

Among the goals of the program are to increase bicycle, pedestrian, and traffic safety, and decrease traffic congestion, to have more children walking and bicycling to schools. Other benefits will be improved community safety, accessibility and increased community interest in bicycle and pedestrian accommodations. 

How to Achieve Safe Routes to School

These goals can be accomplished by encouraging community involvement and improving partnerships among parents, schools, municipalities, and community organizations, and by improving the physical environment to increase the ability to walk and bicycle to school.

What are the 5 E’s of Safe Routes to School Recommended by the Federal Highway Administration?

• Engineering to create infrastructure surrounding schools to reduce speeds and conflicts with motor vehicles and safer crossings, walkways, trails, and bikeways
• Education to teach bicycling and walking safety skills and driver safety around schools
• Encouragement through activities to promote walking and bicycling 
• Enforcement by police of speed limits, yielding to pedestrians in crosswalks, and proper walking and bicycling behaviors; community enforcement, e.g. crossing guard programs
• Evaluation by monitoring and documenting outcomes

Clearwater Child injury attorney Jim Dodson endorses this program and encourages readers to support its goals to make his vision of child safety a reality.

One of the most difficult things to report on is the preventable death of a young child. But if our reporting these tragic accidents can alert families, relatives, and caregivers to the dangers and increase everyone’s vigilance when children are present, we will have performed a useful service.

A release from Associated Press reports that a toddler, 2-year-old Mark Andrew Van Cott, drowned Thursday evening in a lake bordering the backyard of his grandparents’ home in a St. Petersburg’s Brighton Bay area.

The toddler was playing inside the house while his grandparents were preparing dinner. They suddenly noticed he was no longer around and began searching the house for him.

The child’s grandfather then went to search the back yard and saw him lying face down in the lake near the shore. He pulled the little boy from the water and began CPR, which was continued until paramedics arrived.

The young child had apparently gotten out of the house through an open sliding glass door leading to a screened in back porch, and then got out through a screen door that was not secured. The lake is about 60 feet from the house.

The family said that he was not out of sight for more the five minutes before being found in the lake.

Drowning is the number one cause of death in children under 5 in Florida. These tragic child deaths can be prevented by making certain that all doors that could give a child access to water are properly secured, and ensuring that an adult is assigned to keep a watchful eye on a child who is playing anywhere in the vicinity of water.

A Manatee County school bus accident sent 2 students to the hospital for treatment of injuries. The rear-end crash happened when the bus was stopped at the railroad tracks at U.S. 301 North and 19th Ave. East  when the driver of a pickup truck did not stop and plowed into the back of the bus. The  driver was identified as Juan Hernandez-Lopez, 27, of Palmetto.

Florida Highway Patrol reported Lopez was charged with driving under the influence (DUI) resulting in propertydamage/personal injury, driving without a valid Florida driver’s license,  failing to have proof of insurance and careless driving.

Florida law requires school bus drivers to stop at railroad tracks and check for oncoming rail traffic before proceeding.

Summer is here.  Generally that means more families are traveling by car on day trips, long weekends and vacations.   Our daughter was in town recently with our young grandchildren. Her first priority was finding a car seat safety inspection station! Although our infant grandaughter’s new car seat appeared to be secured properly;  our daughter wanted to be sure. Did you know research shows 7 out of 10 car seats are NOT correctly installed?

 The American Automobile Association conducted a survey and found  76% of parents said safety is their main concern when buying a child safety seat but  the  majority of parents polled didn’t know the specifics in regard to placement, age and height recommendations. In a recent study of 3500 car safety and booster seat installations,  72%  of the safety seats were secured in a way that it could be expected a child would suffer injuries if  in a crash.

With all this in mind, here are some safe practices concerning child seat safety and a website to check the locations of child safety seat inspection stations in this area.

 Safety Checklist

•  Parents should ensure that children up to eight years old or four feet, nine inches tall should sit in a safety seat or booster.
•  All children 12 and younger should ride in the back seat of a vehicle.
•  The safest position for a single car seat is the center of the rear seat.

Florida law regarding safety requirements  for child car and booster seats  is more fully discussed in Chapter 1 of my free consumer guide, “When Kids Suffer Big Injuries: A Parent’s Guide to Child Injury in Florida”  available  on our Florida Child Injury Lawyer website.

Attorney James W. Dodson, working to make safety every child’s reality.

In a news release this past week, a Florida couple has won a $6 million civil verdict nearly seven years after their 16-year-old daughter was killed in a fatal car crash. 

 Carlos Pozo, serving a 5 ½ year prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter, was speeding at 100mph on a rain slicked road when he lost control of his car. Kaitlin Kazanjian’s was killed in the crash.  Pozo has no way of paying the verdict. 

 The victim’s father, Palm Beach County Sheriff Office Sgt. John Kazanjian, says it doesn’t matter and it was never about the money, stating:  “I just wanted to get everything on the record.  To this day he thinks this was an accident, “It wasn’t an accident. It was his fault. He killed my daughter.”

 Attorneys for Pozo say he has been “incredibly remorseful” since the day of the accident, writing letters to the Kazanjian’s and tearfully apologizing at his sentencing.  

 For over twenty-five years the Dodson Law Firm has been representing clients seriously injured in accidents as well as families affected by wrongful death.  To speak directly to Jim Dodson about your injury claim,  please call our office toll free at (888) 340-0840 and set up a time to discuss your case at no obligation. Read our No Fee Promise.

A study by the Florida Dept. of Education revealed too many drivers have limited understanding of  Florida laws governing the passing of school buses stopped to load and unload school children. The safety of children in and around school buses is tragically compromised by irresponsible and negligent drivers. Public service announcements to increase awareness and educate drivers and increased law enforcement and engineering measures to increase safety are beginning steps to reduce the alarming number of children who are injured or killed at Florida school bus stops. This is only a partial list posted by Bob Eubanks on February 26, 2010 on this website, to increase public awareness of those who have been injured or who have been killed  between 1981-2010.

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An advertisement by the Allstate Insurance Company  in the Wall Street Journal,  caught our attention!

The ad headline, with an eye-catching  graphic read: “Why do most 16-year-olds drive like their missing part of their brain?  Because they are.” 

A teenager’s brain is not fully developed until their 20’s. The dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, the “missing part of the brain,” plays a major role in teenager’s decision-making and the understanding of consequences. That is why as parents of teen drivers, anxiety and a lot of prayer go along with seeing our young drivers pull out of the driveway; and a sigh of relief and thankfulness when they are home safely!

 Allstate reminds us  teen drivers, yes, even bright, seemingly mature teens sometimes do things the insurance people label as “stupid.”  But  they say- it’s not really their fault!

The company supports  the Standup Act, or the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act of 2009.

 The law creates a National Graduated Driver Licensing law that would provide teens with  on-the-road experience gradually, while helping them avoid risky conditions.

 States that have implemented GDL programs  have seen the number of fatal crashes among 16-year-old drivers fall by almost 40%.

Florida instituted it’s GDL program on July 1, 1996. 

Florida Child Injury Lawyer Jim Dodson, working to make safety, every child’s reality.

Obesity in children can lead to a shorter life.  Those are the results that were found in a study published this week by the New England Journal of Medicine.  Thousands of children were tracked through adulthood and the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely as the thinnest to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury.

 A condition called pre-diabetes brings great concern. Youngsters with this condition were at almost double the risk of dying before 55, and those plagued with high blood pressure were at some increased risk. Obesity however was the factor most closely related with an early death, researchers said.

 “The message here is that if you take your kid to the doctor and the doctor says, ‘Well, their blood pressure is O.K., their cholesterol is O.K. and their sugar’s O.K..,’ the kid who’s obese still warrants our attention,” said Dr. Peter F. Belamarich, chief of specialty medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.

 In Florida, 33% of children are considered overweight or obese.  This is higher than the national average of 31.6%.  These statistics have gradually risen since 2003.

The news of a “cancer cluster” in The Acreage, a community near Palm Beach, Florida this week has been very disturbing.  The most distressing aspect was revealed Wednesday when state health officials announced that they would mount a campaign to raise awareness about childhood brain cancer rather than search for the environmental cause of the cancer cluster. 

Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department said the state’s investigation hasn’t uncovered the reason behind the Palm Beach County community’s elevated levels of childhood brain cancer and brain tumors. Alsonso gave no hope that even after investigators wrap up the 2^nd phase of their work next month that an answer will be found. 

Senator Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, an attorney general candidate countered with his own comments saying, “It’s unreasonable to simply say there is no known cause, when many factors could have contributed to environmental contamination in The Acreage.”  The concerns lie in large groves and farms, and most notably in the nearby Pratt & Whitney plant, which has spilled chemicals on its property over the years.  The Health Department director pointed out to reporters that she has “nothing saying these cancers are a result of Pratt & Whitney.”

Results released Monday confirmed suspicions and fears.  Higher rates of brain tumors and cancer are evident in the 32,000-39,000 residents of this rural Palm Beach community.  The data reveals “significantly elevated” pediatric brain and central nervous system cancers, particularly for girls, in those up to 19 years old.

What’s next?   That part is unknown as this promises to be an incredibly frustrating and frightening series of events for the residents at The Acreage.  For the latest information visitors can find out more at acreageforum.org.