Injury

Troubling trend of inmate deaths leave corrections institutions vulnerable to lawsuits

July 17, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What exactly is a wrongful death claim?”

The death of a 16-year-old at the S.C. Department of Juvenile Justice wasn’t a first for persons in the custody of the Palmetto State this year. Let’s hope it’s the last.

The young man—Alan C. Cottrell—was found in his room hanging from a bed sheet, according to Richland Coroner Gary Watts. Cottrell, who was alone in his room when the hanging occurred, was discovered by staff at around 11:30 p.m. He was taken to Lexington Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead of asphyxiation by hanging at 12:22 a.m.

The death is under investigation by the coroner and the State Law Enforcement Division. Watts said he did not know how long it had been since department staff had checked on Cottrell before the hanging. Three employees have been placed on suspension, according to Loretta S. Neal, the Director of Public Affairs for the Department. Through Neal, the Department extended its deepest sympathy and condolences to Cottrell’s family.

Earlier this year, in a May 20 incident, 44-year-old Randy William Stevens hanged himself in the Lancaster County jail. An investigation into Stevens’ death revealed that an officer on duty slept for two hours with headphones on her ears. Per jail policy, Stevens was supposed to be checked every 15 minutes. The officer falsified records showing she had performed the checks. Both she and her supervisor were fired, and three other officers were suspended for three days without pay.

Concussion injuries spark concerns well beyond the NFL playing field

July 15, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can you sue for in a personal injury case?”

The latest serious head injury to a world-class football player has raised concerns over the safety of the sport and how it deals with concussions. This time it is not America’s version of football that is grabbing headlines.

The concussion was not suffered on an NFL training camp field—the Buffalo Bills kick off training camp July 18, and most NFL teams don’t start until the following week. Instead, German midfielder Christoph Kramer collided with Argentine defender Ezequiel Garay during Sunday’s World Cup Finale. Kramer suffered a vicious knock in the face; he kept playing for 14-miuntes before being substituted. After the match, he said he remembered little of Germany’s 1-0 victory over Argentina.

The Argentine team started at least two players in the World Cup finale who had suffered hard knocks to the head in a semifinal match against the Netherlands. Michael D’Hooghe, chairman of FIFA’s medical committee, said he was dismayed at watching Uruguayan player Alvaro Pereira resume playing after being knocked unconscious in an earlier game. FIFA is the organization that runs the World Cup.

Americans aren’t as familiar with un-American football—also known as soccer—as the rest of the world, but they are familiar with sports-related concussions and their effects. Few Americans could have missed the amount of media attention devoted to football-related concussions in recent years. Democrat Representative Linda T. Sanchez of California told NFL commissioner Roger Goodell the NFL was like “the tobacco companies pre-’90s when they kept saying, ‘Oh, there’s no link between smoking and damage to your health’” at a 2009 Congressional hearing. That wasn’t the first—nor was it the only—Congressional tongue-whipping the NFL received on the subject.

Some researchers have called for a ban on American football. Others have asked leagues ranging from the NFL to local little-league football chapters to take steps to minimize the risk of head injuries. Even the White House got in on the action, holding a “Healthy Kids and Safe Sports” concussion summit this past May.

Man gored by running bull—and many others—have no case in North Carolina

July 10, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What if the accident was my fault?”

A 32-year-old American author who wrote a survival guide for Spain’s Pamplona bull-running festival was gored on Wednesday by a 1,320-pound bull named Brevito during the annual San Fermin festival.

The man, Bill Hillman, was skewered in the right thigh by the bull’s horn; the bull also gored a 35-year-old Spanish man in the chest. A friend of Hillman’s said the bull’s horn had missed the artery in Hillman’s right thigh and that Hillman had undergone surgery at a local hospital and was expected to survive.

Hillman co-authored a 2014 e-book called “Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona.”

Dozens of people were injured in the annual bull-running, held on a narrow, half-mile course. The bulls took under four minutes to run the course before being led into a bull ring to face matadors and death. The most recent human bull-run fatality came in 2009, when a Spanish man was gored to death.

Hillman may be lucky, but if he thinks he has any legal claims, he is out of luck. Of course he couldn’t sue the bull, but could he sue Pamplona or the outfit that organizes the bull runs? No. The reason why may seem obvious, but in the law, sometimes obvious answers lead to absurd results.

Woman grows nose on her back eight years after stem-cell surgery

July 8, 2014 | AS Personal Injury Lawyers

Charlotte Personal Injury Attorney Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question: Can I wait a few months to pursue a personal injury claim?

Medical treatments involving stem cells have been hailed as holding the promise of a new generation of treatments for a variety of diseases, ailments and disorders. Now an American woman is learning that experimental stem cell treatments performed in Portugal eight years ago may have produced some unintended results.

The woman was suffering from paralysis. Doctors had used a similar method on some 20 other paralysis patients; more than half reported recovery of movement or sensation. The American woman’s treatment did not involve the controversial method of transplanting of embryonic stem cells; instead, doctors removed tissue from her nose and implanted it in her spine. Doctors hoped the cells would turn into other cell types similar to cells near the site of the woman’s injury, acting as a kind of bodily “repair kit.”

Instead, after the stem-cell operation, the woman experienced increasing pain. In 2013—eight years after the stem cell operation—doctors discovered a three-centimeter-long growth made up mainly of nasal tissue on the woman’s back. Doctors also found small pieces of bone and nerve branches that had not connected to the woman’s spinal nerves.

Doctors said this circumstance occurred in less than one-percent of operations and that many patients receiving the treatment had seen a “remarkable recovery.”