Articles Posted in Child Injuries

According to a recent article from WJCL, an 11-year-old girl has a brain injury that is believed to be the result of another student throwing a football at her face. Victim’s father said he was aware his child was a victim of other children bullying her, and had notified the school of his concerns for her safety prior to her being permanently injured.

He said he had even sent the school over 20 separate emails concerned with his daughter’s safety from school bullies and made some attempts to fix the situation, but he wishes more had been done by everyone involved, including himself.

In this serious incident, her father alleges another child intentionally threw a football at his daughter’s face. She came home from school feeling lightheaded, and he took her the doctor for an examination. Doctors soon learned she had a rare disorder known as intracranial hypertension. While doctors cannot say her alleged assault was the definitive cause of her traumatic brain injury, there is a high probability, since it typically a result of head trauma.

She is currently losing vision in one eye and may go permanently blind, even if she has a risky surgery to correct the issue. Intracranial hypertension involves the skull putting pressure on the optic nerve, causing blindness to occur.
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When we first leave our kids at daycare or with an after school childcare program, it is sometimes an emotional experience. Whether it is the first time the child has been away from his parents, or at high school sports program, we are worried something bad could happen. While these concerns are completely normal for any parent to have, we generally assume he or she will come home safe at the end of the day.

Unfortunately for one family, this was not the case. According to a recent news feature from North Jersey.com, a child’s life was forever changed when he was only six years old. His mother says she had her son in an after school program when a serious accident occurred. The young victim was sitting on the floor working on a puzzle when a collapsed cafeteria table fell on him. The table was folded up along the floor and was supposed to be secured, but it was not. When the table hit the young victim it fractured his femur and skull.

While he eventually made a full physical recovery, the victim, who is autistic, now fixates on accidents and must visit the place where he was injured almost every day after school. This accident occurred eight years ago, and her son is still affected by what happened. His mother learned another young boy had recently died in similar accident at another school, and she could hardly believe this happened again.
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After all the snow were are getting in the Greater Boston Area this winter, many families are buying or making a sled and heading to a local hill to have some fun. However, according to a recent news article from the Boston Globe, parents should be putting a helmet on their children before sending them down the hill.

While parents often make sure to bundle their kids up so much they can barely move their arms, a helmet is rarely considered when sending a child out sledding. While years ago it was perfectly acceptable to send your child down the ski slopes without a helmet, these days it is rare to see a child not wearing a ski helmet. In sledding, however, helmets are a rarely worn, and this is troubling because a person on a sled is traveling at high rate of speed, often around trees or cars, and has far less control than he or she would on skis or a snowboard. As the article points outs, bike helmets have also gone from hardly seen to absolutely necessary safety equipment for both child and adult riders.
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A Bobcat is a compact tractor commonly used by homeowners with significant acreage and during smaller scale construction projects. They can be fitted with a variety of attachments to dig holes, hammer through concrete, move dirt and shovel snow. With all of the snow storms hitting our area this winter, people are using Bobcats and other similar machines to clear driveways and plow streets across the Commonwealth.

According to a recent news article from the Boston Herald, a 12-year-old Pepperell boy was seriously injured when hit by his family’s Bobcat. Witnesses say victim’s juvenile brother was operating the machine to clear snow after a recent storm. The victim was walking behind the Bobcat when he slipped on an icy path left by its tracks. The young operator did not see his brother had fallen behind him and backed over his brother.
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Skiing is a very popular winter sport, especially in New England. While skiing can be a lot of fun, accidents can occur. Many of the accidents are what one might consider normal skiing accidents such as falling when getting off a chairlift and breaking a bone or staining a muscle.

Everyone who goes skiing should know there are risks associated with the sport. However, some skiing accidents, while they don’t occur frequently, are much more serious and can result in death of a skier.

According to recent news article from the Lowell Sun, a 13-year-old boy was killed at ski resort in Massachusetts. Authorities say young victim had died when he hit a tree in what appears to be this particular ski resort’s first fatal accident in its operational history.
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When we send our children to school, we assume that school officials will take proper precautions to make sure our kids are safe. In Lyons v. Richmond Cmty. Sch. Corp, a case from the Indiana Supreme Court, plaintiff was the parent of a 17-year-old high school student with Down syndrome who was considered severely disabled. She had trouble eating and failed to chew her food or frequently took too many bites before attempting to swallow.

A contractor hired by the state worked with her school to develop a safety plan for the girl, which included a requirement that staff monitor her closely at every meal or snack. She was never to be left alone while eating. Specifically, the plan said the girl tended to shove food into her mouth and will choke if not carefully supervised. She required constant monitoring and verbal prompts to slow down. Additionally, the school had an established procedure that required staff to cut up all the girl’s food.
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Entergy Mississippi, Inc. v. Acey, a case from the Supreme Court of Mississippi, involved a child who was electrocuted while playing on a farm.

Employee was operating a cotton picker and parked it under an allegedly sagging power line. The child climbed onto the parked cotton picker, touched the power line and was electrocuted.

During his deposition, employee testified that he and his sons were unaware that farm owners’ daughter and her friend, the electrocuted child, were playing nearby. One of employee’s sons saw a flash, and they immediately ran to the area where the flash originated and found plaintiff on top of the cotton picker. Employee held the child until paramedics arrived.
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Our Boston personal injury lawyers know storeowners who do not properly inspect and maintain their premises may subject themselves to a negligence lawsuit.

According to recent story from CBS, a security gate at a Philadelphia Italian ice store killed a three-year-old child. Authorities are reporting that an accordion-style metal gate that rolls down to protect the store from burglars came loose from the building structure. The 2000-pound gate, along with the metal frame constructed on steel beams, detached from the building and fell on the child.

This tragic accident occurred during a fundraising event hosted by two college fraternities. Witnesses say that dozens of people tried to lift the gate off the child. At one point there were 12 to 15 people on each side of the gate but it was too heavy for them to quickly lift. Eventually, with the help of 30 people, they were able to lift the gate off the young girl, but she was not moving at that point.
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Our Boston personal injury lawyers know cases involving injuries to children can be especially hard on families.

According to a recent story from News10.com, the family of a ninth grade student at a school in Hialeah, Florida filed a negligence lawsuit against an event company. The girl was attending Spirit Day at the school and was participating in a sumo wrestling game.

The girl was wearing a sumo wrestler suit provided by the event company. The suit allegedly did not fit her properly. The family, through their attorney, alleged that the improperly fitting suit and insufficient supervision caused the girl to have her head banged against the floor several times.
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Newborn brain injuries typically occur because the infant experiences trauma to the brain during birth or because the infant’s brain is deprived of oxygen and cell death occurs. While birth defects or injury in the womb can be a cause of newborn brain injuries, many problems occur during overly prolonged labors or when doctors make medical errors and cause a child to suffer harm.

Now, there are new guidelines designed to help doctors identify causes of newborn brain injury so that they can develop appropriate preventative strategies to protect children from risk. Physicians need to review the guidelines released by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Physicians. If a medical care provider falls short of taking reasonable steps to prevent newborn brain injury, that physician can be held legally liable for medical malpractice with the help of a Boston birth injury lawyer.
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