Finch McCranie, LLP

Reuse of Syringes Can Cause Dangerous Infections

Medical Malpractice takes many forms. In this article, we write about a unusual but dangerous medical error that can cause lifetime consequences for an innocent patient.
Though most everyone knows that sharing needles is unsafe in today’s world, sharing or reusing syringes can be equally dangerous. During any health related injection, a tiny amount of blood is often inadvertently drawn back into a syringe. Most of the time, that does not make a difference because it is common practice to use a new syringe and
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Motorcycle Accidents on the Rise

Our personal injury practice reflects pretty much what we see in national statistics concerning the rising rate of motorcycle injuries and accidents. We are seeing more and more clients seriously injured in motorcycle accidents. In large part, this is primarily due to increased numbers of motorcycle riders. Motorcycle registrations have more than doubled since 1997. In 2006, almost 6.5 million motorcycles were registered in this country. The good news is that the number of deaths and injuries resulting from these 6.5 million motorcycles is no
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AEDs Save Young Athletes

Portable defibrillators are becoming common equipment at youth athletic event. We have written in the past explaining how theses devices, also known as AEDs, help restart the heart in the event of an accident.
A recent news report relates that last month in Jacksonville, Fla. A high school lacrosse goalie was hit in the chest by a lacrosse ball causing his heart to stop beating. And, it happened again just last week at another lacrosse game in Raleigh, N.C.
Researchers say that over the last
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Lasik Problems To Be Studied

Lasik vision correction surgery has been performed in the United States for almost ten years. It has become a massive business with specialized centers opening in most markets and advertising freedom from glasses. However, not everyone’s a good candidate and some suffer life-changing side effects — lost vision, dry eye, night-vision problems.
Today, the Food and Drug Administration is beginning a major new effort to see if warnings about the risks are strong enough. The FDA estimates that approximately 5 percent of patients are dissatisfied,
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Plastic Bottle Dangers

Wal-Mart announced this week that it will soon stop selling baby bottles made with the chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The retailer said that it was immediately stopping sales of baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, food containers and water bottles made with BPA in its Canadian stores. There has been speculation that Canada’s health department would soon declare the chemical unsafe.
On Monday the U.S. National Toxicology Program released a draft report that expressed concern that BPA, which is used to make plastic, could cause behavioral
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Medical Record Privacy In Peril

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine, warns that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.
The authors are proponents of the benefits of electronic patient records to improve care and help individuals make smarter health decisions. But their concern is that the medical profession and policymakers have not begun to understand the implications of companies
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TRIBUTE TO A CLIENT

Our firm concluded a wrongful death case this year on behalf of the family of a 40-year old man who was killed when a bicycle he was riding became entangled in loose utility wires which completely obstructed a city sidewalk adjacent to Peachtree Road in Atlanta. The injuries this young man received in the accident cost him his life. Subsequent thereto, our firm filed a lawsuit against the City of Atlanta for negligent maintenance of the City’s sidewalk and against two utility companies for
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Insured Loses Katrina Claim

The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that a flood exclusion in an “all-risk” policy barred a claim by the owner of an apartment building damaged by flood waters during Hurricane Katrina.
The owner lived in the five-unit building when four feet of water entered the basement during the hurricane. He had a commercial “all-risk” policy and submitted a claim for the damage. An insurer’s inspector claimed most of the damage was due to poor maintenance and flooding.
The insurer paid only $230 on the claim
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Heparin Concerns Grow

This Tuesday federal regulators from the FDA urged makers of many kinds of medical devices that contain heparin to test their supplies. These concerns arise from previously discovered supplies of Chinese made heparin contaminated with a look-alike ingredient that mimicked heparin in standard tests of drug potency and purity.
The FDA announced last month that it had identified the contaminant as a modified form of a common nutritional supplement. That substance is cheaper to produce than heparin, leading to suspicions that it may have been
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Escalator Injuries Increasing

A new study reports that from 1991 to 2005, nearly 40,000 people older than 65 were injured while riding escalators, an average of 2,660 a year. The report, published in the March issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, is based on an analysis of data collected by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The rate of injury more than doubled in that period — to 11 per 100,000 population in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, from 4.9 in 1991. There
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Trial Techniques – The Art of Cross-Examination Part II

In our first article on the art of cross-examination, we addressed the first objective of cross-examination, that being an effort to obtain evidence which is favorable to one’s case without attacking the witness. The second alternative purpose of cross-examination, which we address in this article, however, is to impeach or corroborate the testimony of another witness in the case. Here, we do not speak of impeaching the witness offering the testimony or otherwise attacking their credibility, but rather impeaching or corroborating the testimony of another
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Trial Techniques: The Art of Cross-Examination – Part I

This entry will be the beginning of a series of blogs on trial techniques used by successful trial attorneys in the representation of their clients. The art of cross-examination is just that, an art, not a science. To be a successful trial lawyer, one has to be successful at cross-examination. This requires some natural ability to think logically in the heat of battle a fundamental understanding of what makes for successful cross-examination and actual trial experience.
As successful trial lawyer does not become a successful
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Dangerous “UTV” Recall Following 46 Deaths

Yamaha Motor Corporation, the manufacturer of Rhino off road vehicles, has recalled the same because of safety issues associated with its Rhino 450, 660 and 700 models. Owners of these Utility Terrain Vehicles (UTVs) are being warned not to use them until certain repairs are made. The repairs that will be made to the vehicles include the installation of a spacebar on the rear wheels as well as the removal of an anti-sway bar which repairs are supposed to reduce the chances of rollovers.
According
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Home Propane Gas Explosions Can Cause Injuries and Death

One of the Georgia injury lawyers at Finch McCranie, LLP recently got a case involving a propane explosion which completely burned and destroyed the client’s home. The explosion could easily have resulted in the death or serious injury of the clients entire family, including their new baby. Fortunately the injuries were not life threatening; however, they lost everything they owned and have no insurance to replace the home.
Propane is a highly combustible hydro-carbon gas, similar to ethane and butane. Propane gas is compressed
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Charter Bus Accident in Atlanta Repeats Bluffton University Bus Accident on Interstate 75

As the lawyers who represented the most seriously injured survivor of the March 2007 Bluffton University bus accident on I-75 in Atlanta, we were greatly disturbed today to hear that two charter buses from Detroit reportedly have crashed at exactly the same location on I-75 in Atlanta.
WSB-TV reports that the two buses mistakenly took an “HOV-only” left exit ramp from I-75 southbound in Atlanta at Northside Drive, instead of staying on I-75’s regular HOV lane. The buses were carrying a high school band. The
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Drug or Prescription Errors Can Cause Death and Serious Injury

As Georgia injury lawyers, we often get calls about pharmacy mistakes and prescription errors being committed by medical providers, including drug stores. Many times, the mistakes are caught before any damage is done; however, sometimes serious injury or death occurs. Recently, we read about a case where a pharmacist at a Wal-Mart store allegedly mislabeled a pill bottle, resulting in a woman in her 70’s taking twice the recommended and prescribed dose of a blood pressure medication. As a result, she has suffered serious
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Medical Device Dangers Are Avoidable

Our attorneys have seen many cases in which patients are injured, sometimes severely, by healthcare professional in Georgia hospitals committing careless and preventable errors or by medical device defects.
The ECRI Institute recently released its annual list of top hospital medical device hazards for last year. The ECRI Institute, a nonprofit organization, dedicated to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best, in an effort to improve patient care. It is one of only a
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LIABILITY FOR ATV DEATHS AND SERIOUS INJURIES-ARE YOU AT RISK?

As a Georgia injury lawyer I read more and more about ATV accidents involving serious injuries and deaths, especially among children. Although there have been dozens of tragic deaths, I recall that in 2003 five Georgia children died after a car struck their ATV. The children, ranging in age from 11 to 14, had piled into the ATV and were going for a ride on a winding road during a birthday party when the collision occurred.
Two years ago, we represented the estate of
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ATV DEATHS AND INJURIES ARE ON THE RISE

With the growing popularity of ATV’s or All-Terrain Vehicles, serious injury and death cases are on the increase in Georgia, especially among children. Believe it or not, the only legal requirements governing ATV operation in Georgia are that they have brakes and a muffler, and that the operators do not ride on private property without permission. Because of the ever increasing number of fatalities and serious injuries to ATV operators, especially children, the Georgia legislature decided it was necessary to study this problem to determine

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Worker’s Compensation Claims Overview

In Georgia, worker’s compensation is essentially an insurance program regulated by the state and required of most employers. Worker’s compensation pays medical bills and lost wages for employees who have had work related accidents resulting in illness or injury.
Employees with work-related conditions or injuries are entitled, but not limited, to:
• Reimbursement of travel expenses, including mileage to and from medical appointments
• Prescription reimbursements
• Two-thirds of your weekly wage while you are unable to work and are off work up
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