New Jersey Accident and Injury Law Blog : New Jersey Injury Lawyer & Attorney : The Grossman Law Firm : Serving Monmouth County, Bergen County

A group of Australian researchers has studied slip and fall accident risks among the elderly, and is advising that senior citizens must wear glasses with single focal lenses to minimize the risk of a fall.

Researchers studied a group of 606 senior citizens, who all wore multifocal glasses. They divided these people into two groups. The first group was handed over two pairs of single focal glasses, and was told to use these separately for close viewing and distance use. The other group continued using their multi-focal lenses. Both groups were asked to record the number of times they suffered a fall accident over 12 months.

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Researchers have compiled data obtained from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and found that elderly citizens are at a high risk for elevator injuries.

Most elevator injuries occur when the person is getting into the elevator or walking out of it. Elderly persons are likely to slip and fall when they perform these activities, with possibly fatal consequences. Another common cause of injury is when an elderly person gets his hand or leg caught in the closing elevator doors.

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Renowned CNN anchor Anderson Cooper has been named in a lawsuit filed by a New York City interior designer. The lawsuit arises out of a slip and fall accident that the designer blames on Cooper.

The accident occurred last September at Cooper's new home. The anchor had recently purchased a house that earlier used to be a firehouse. On the day of the accident, the interior decorator Killian O’Brien was at the home when she fell through a gaping hole that earlier held the fire pole. Apparently, someone had removed the covers of the hole before O'Brien arrived on the premises. It was a 17-foot fall for O’Brien, and she was injured. Her lawyer claims the fall could have killed her. O'Brien has filed a lawsuit against Cooper.  

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The city of New Brunswick and its outdated inspection laws are the focus of a new premises liability lawsuit filed by the family of a Monmouth County college student, who suffered serious injuries in a fall accident at a friend’s off-campus house in 2008.

Howell-resident Frank Ozello Jr. was standing on a second floor landing, leaning against the railing when the railing broke under his weight, and sent him crashing to the floor. He suffered critical injuries, and had to be placed in a medically induced coma. He suffered brain trauma, broke 6 of his vertebrae and suffered three skull fractures. Ozello spent 6 weeks at a brain trauma center. He has been recovering physically, but still shows signs of brain damage.

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The results of a study released earlier this month, show that the number of fatalities from unintended injuries increased by 11 percent between 1999 and 2005. Most troubling of all has been the sharp increase in the number of people killed in accidental falls and poisonings.

Researchers at the John Hopkins School of Public Health say that there were approximately 20,000 more deaths from unintentional injury in 2005, compared to 1999. Approximately 89 percent of the increase in fatalities could be traced to two causes –

• Accidental poisonings in the age group of 15 to 64
• Fall accidents in those above 45 years of age

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Slip and fall injuries are expected to increase in number as the baby boomer generation ages. That’s because the elderly are more at risk of being injured in slip and fall accidents. That, and other facts and solutions are contained in a new white paper by insurer CNA.

According to the report, annually fall accidents kill more than 16,000 people in the country. Besides these, more than one million people are injured every year. Most of these accidents are caused because of factors like poor walking surface, lack of visibility, poor accessibility, and weak hand rails and guard rails.

According to the National Floor Institute, the number of seniors in the country between 2005 and 2020 is expected to increase from 35 million to 77 million. Not only are these people more likely to slip and fall injuring themselves, but the cost of treating these injuries is higher for an elderly person than for someone younger.  As Bergen County premises liability attorneys frequently see, the kinds of fall injuries that elderly people face are also the number one reason they have to be hospitalized.

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A New Jersey woman, who fell while trying to scale the wall of a Mercer cemetery and successfully sued the city of Trenton, may end up not keeping her $1.6 million premises injury award after all.

In 2001, Suzanne Ogborne was strolling through the Mercer cemetery, when an employee locked the gates at 4.30 pm – the cemetery's closing hours - leaving Ogborne inside. After trying in vain to find another open route out of the cemetery, Ogborne finally scaled the wall, and jumped over and down to the other side. The fall left her with a broken tibia. She had to undergo surgery, and was forced to remain away from work for three months. She also suffered a pulmonary embolism, a disorder characterized by blockage of a lung artery and caused by a blood clot traveling from the leg, as a result of her injuries and the treatment. The condition can lead to a loss of oxygen in the blood, and carries the risk of organ damage because of this loss of oxygen. 

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A New Jersey court has overturned the ruling of a Middlesex County judge throwing out the case of a man who was injured from a fall in a vacation rental. Hermes Reyes was only a few days into a holiday at a vacation home in Stone Harbor in Aug-Sep 2003 when the slip and fall accident occurred. As he opened the glass sliding doors of his bedroom to walk out onto the deck, a 7-inch gap between the bottom of the door and the wooden platform of the deck, caused him to miss a step and fall to the ground. There was no guardrail for him to grab to break his fall. The accident left Reyes with serious injuries.  

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