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Pinellas County MAN INJURED in bus crash PSTA bus rear-ended by school bus

ST. PETERSBURG — A St. Petersburg man riding as a passenger in a Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) Bus was hospitalized with minor injuries after the PSTA bus was rear-ended by a school bus. According to police, the crash happened near 66th Street and 30th Avenue N. There were no children on the school bus,…

BROKEN ARM ♦ Children’s Injuries ♦ BROKEN LEG

STATEWIDE – As a parent, the most important thing in your life is your child, and you will do anything to protect him or her from personal injury. With smaller bodies and a lower pain tolerance, children are prime targets for serious injury and even wrongful death.  If your child’s injury was caused by someone…

Car accident | BRAIN INJURY | Traumatic Brain Injuries lead to depression | AMA study

More than half of all people who suffer a traumatic brain injury will become depressed in the year after the injury, a rate eight times higher than in the general population, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Only about 45 percent of those who do become depressed are…

JURY VERDICT | Jury awards $14 MILLION in asbestos case | DADE COUNTY

DADE COUNTY – According the the Miami Herald (5/21, Morales) reports, “A Miami-Dade jury has awarded a Sarasota man more than $14 million after deciding that the asbestos he inhaled in the 1970s caused his deadly abdominal cancer. Jurors found that chemical giant Union Carbide was negligent for selling asbestos fibers to other companies, which had…

JURY VERDICT | Jury awards $29.1 MILLION to widow in tobacco case | BROWARD COUNTY

BROWARD COUNTY – Accoring to the Bloomberg News (5/20, Van Voris) reported, “R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. must pay $29.1 million to Connie Buonomo, the widow of a Florida man who started smoking at age 13 and died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2008, a jury in Fort Lauderdale said. The unanimous verdict today by…

BLACK BOX ♦ Truck in Fatal Crash Lacked Recorder ♦ Truck driver may have been on cell phone

Federal investigators say there was no electronic recorder on a truck that crossed the median and killed the truck driver and 10 others. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesman said, “along with lacking a recorder, the manual log kept by the driver was destroyed in the fire caused by the crash.” The manual log…

TOY RECALL | Toy dart guns recalled after two deaths | WARNING to PARENTS

NATIONAL – The AP (5/17) reported, “The asphyxiation deaths of two boys prompted the government Monday to announce the recall of 1.8 million toy dart gun sets. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said a 9-year-old boy in Chicago and a 10-year-old boy in Milwaukee died after they chewed on the one-inch, soft-plastic darts, which slipped…

JURY VERDICT | $29.1 million in damages over nursing home death | 28 million in punitive damages

NATIONAL – Recently a jury has awarded $29.1 million in damages against a nursing home. The jury found the nursing home staff guilty of elder abuse in the death of the plaintiff. In response to “hearing testimony about the company’s finances,” jurors determined the companies should pay $28 million in punitive damages to the plaintiff’s estate…

TEEN DRIVING | Statistics | TEEN CAR CRASHES | Personal Injuries

NATIONAL – Recent studies have shown that teens that own their own cars are more likely to get into accidents than teens who share the family car.  Twenty-five percent of teens who have their own cars have been involved in crashes compared to eleven percent who shared the car. Teens who had parents, who set…

TV ADS – Drug Advertisements on TV – The FDA rolls out “bad ad program” to identify misleading pharmaceutical marketing claims

NATIONAL – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced “it will begin asking doctors to keep an eye out for misleading drug advertisements as part of the agency’s latest effort to police the pharmaceutical industry’s multibillion-dollar marketing machine.” Specifically, the FDA’s “‘bad ad program ‘ urges doctors to report ads and sales pitches that…