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Swimming Pool Injuries and Accidents. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Whether you own or rent a home with a swimming pool, or go to a private or community pool, it is important to remember that pools pose an ever-present danger for serious injuries and fatalities. The reported findings of numerous studies show the grim connection between pools and injuries.
According to the federal government's statistics, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years. For younger children between 1 and 4, the risk rises to make accidental drowning the biggest source of injury-related deaths. 1
For every one child who dies from drowning, another four children receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.
Men, children, and minorities are more at a higher risk for pool-related injuries, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). 2
There is an annual average of 283 drowning deaths and 2,700 emergency room-treated submersion injuries involving children younger than 5 years in pools and spas. 3
Most children who drown in swimming pools were last seen at home, had not been seen for five minutes or less, and were in the care of either one or both parents at the time of the drowning.
The Non-Fatal Swimming Pool Injury Some of the most serious non-fatal swimming pool injuries can include traumatic brain injury (TBI), disembowelment and evisceration, and other submersion injuries.
TBI can occur when a swimmer dives into pools and hits his/her head. Often, the person who hit his/her head may not even appear to be injured.
Former presidential candidate and North Carolina lawyer John Edwards represented a number of swimming pool injury victims and their families in lawsuits where children where disemboweled or eviscerated after being caught and suctioned in pools with missing or defective drain covers. 4
The results of swimming pool drain injuries can be catastrophic: if a child's bottom covers the drain portal of a wading pool, the corresponding suction force can disembowel them through a ruptured rectum. Even a slight change in pressure can trigger such pool injuries, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 5
The U.S. Lifesaving Association reported that lifeguards prevented more than 564,000 water-related injuries in 2009. Not all swimming pools have lifeguards, especially those at hotels and private residences.
Swimming Pool Dangers Although there are state and federal laws, codes and standards for pools and spas to prevent body entrapment, hair entrapment, entanglement, and evisceration, serious non-fatal swimming pool injuries and deaths still occur.
Public wading pools for children, swimming pools specifically designed for young kids, spas with flat-drain gates, and pools with single main drain systems pose the greatest of danger of entrapment for kids.
Electrical defects, slippery pool decks, ladders and stairs, improper or unsafe pool toys, pool slides and diving boards all have the potential to injure swimmers and non-swimmers at pools.
Medical Treatment and Recovery from Swimming Pool Injuries Treatment for swimming pool injuries can be extensive, and often involves life-changing therapies and rehabilitation.
Because the colon, intestines, rectum, and GI tract are often damaged in certain pool injuries, victims of swimming pool disembowelment and evisceration generally have a colostomy that allows the removal of human waste from their body via a bag attached to the abdomen. Disembowelment victims may also have to be fed intravenously, be more susceptible to infection, and have their movement severely restricted.
In addition to physical damages, the mental and emotional damage suffered by victims of life-changing swimming pool injuries can be severe.
Similarly, TBI victims will require a lifetime of chronic care, together with extensive rehabilitation and the use of expensive assistive technologies, including augmentative and alternative communication devices.
Swimming Pool Injuries and Your Legal Rights There are state and federal laws about the safety of swimming pools and their equipment which must be observed by manufacturers, sellers and installers of pools and spas.
If you or a loved one experienced swimming pool-related injuries, you may be entitled to compensation for current and future expenses, in addition to special legal damages.
Some of the legal factors that an attorney can review with you include:•Whether you and your loved ones may be entitled to compensation for current and future medical treatment, rehabilitation, and expenses;
•If you and your loved ones can recover lost wages from work, and other out-of-pocket expenses stemming from swimming pool injuries; and
•Whether a swimming pool injury may entitle you and your loved ones to recover damages for pain and suffering.
•Never play near swimming pool drains or suction outlets, especially in 'kiddie pools' and spas.
•Never enter a pool or spa with a drain cover that is loose, broken, or missing.
•Install a four-sided, isolation pool fence that completely separates the house and play area of the yard from the pool area. The fence should be at least 4 feet high. Use self-closing and self-latching gates that open outward with latches that are out of reach of children. Also, consider additional barriers such as automatic door locks or alarms to prevent access or notify you if someone enters the pool area.
•Remove floats, balls and other toys from the pool and surrounding area immediately after use. The presence of these toys may encourage children to enter the pool area or lean over the pool and potentially fall in.
•Ask any recreation center, hotel, or vacation center about how they keep track of pool safety and potential hazards.
•Do not leave your children alone or unattended at any swimming pool, whether it is your own pool, a public pool, or a private swimming facility. |
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Healthcare Lawsuit By State AGs Attacks Health Insurance Law By Joel Zand on March 23, 2010 9:54 AM
Thirteen State Attorney Generals filed a federal lawsuit today alleging that the federal health care and insurance bill passed by Congress over the weekend, and signed into law by President Barack Obama this afternoon, is unconstitutional.
The heart of the multi-state lawsuit contends that the new federal health care law far exceeds federal legal authority under Article I and the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The states also contend that the health care reform law imposes an illegal tax penalty against a state's citizens and legal residents who do not have qualifying health care coverage, a provision that they maintain constitutes an unlawful direct tax that violates Article I, sections 2 and 9 of the U.S. Constitution.
You can read the State Attorney Generals' lawsuit challenging the new national health insurance law here:
Tobacco Smoking Injury Dangers. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cigarette smoking kills an estimated 443,000 people, roughly 1 out of every 5 deaths, every year in the United States. Each year, smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. From these figures, roughly 38,000 people die each year from secondhand smoke -- tobacco smoke that has been exhaled by smokers and inhaled involuntarily or passively by other people.
Smoking and chewing tobacco is the single most preventable cause of disease, disability and death in the U.S., according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Smoking is so dangerous that federal law requires warnings on every package of cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco. These different warnings are clear and direct about smoking and tobacco dangers:
•Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, and May Complicate Pregnancy. •Smoking By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, And Low Birth Weight. •Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide. •Cigar Smoking Can Cause Cancers Of The Mouth And Throat, Even If You Do Not Inhale. •Tobacco Smoke Increases The Risk Of Lung Cancer And Heart Disease, Even In Nonsmokers. •Smokeless Tobacco May Cause Gum Disease And Tooth Loss •Smokeless Tobacco May Cause Mouth Cancer. Smoking Deaths and Injuries: The Numbers Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body, but it wreaks particular havoc on the lungs and heart. Smoking can cause chronic lung disease, and has been attributed to cause cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth, bladder, cervix, pancreas, and kidneys.
Studies of tobacco's effects on health also show:
•129,000 people die each year, on average, from lung cancer caused by smoking.
•126,000 people die each year from congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease caused by cigarette smoking.
•90,000 people die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by smoking each year. The two most common forms of COPD are emphysema and chronic obstructive bronchitis. According to NIH, cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD, a disease that affects one's ability to breathe, getting progressively worse over time. Cigarette smokers and victims of second hand smoke who suffer from COPD breathe less air because smoking damaged the air sacs in their lungs, clogged their airways, and/or
•Smoking is also responsible for more than 35,000 deaths from other cancers each year, nearly 16,000 annual stroke-related death, and 44,000 deaths from other causes attributable to smoking. Cigarettes are not the only form of tobacco that can kill or injure you. Cigar smoking and chewing tobacco are also associated with an increased risk of death from several highly fatal cancers, including oral, throat and esophageal cancer.
The Dangerously High Medical Costs of Smoking Related Injuries The financial cost for treating smoking-related injuries and ongoing healthcare costs for treating tobacco-related injuries and conditions are staggering. Many smoking-related illnesses like lung cancer are fatal, and only get progressively worse over time. The costs associated with getting treatment, medication, and chronic care can be an enormous financial burden for smokers and their families.
Physical injury is not the only one aspect of Smoking-related trauma. The mental traumas that smoking victims experience from smoking-induced cancers can also be significant.
The estimated annual public and private financial cost from smoking related health care expenses is $96 billion. Additional estimated annual costs include:
•$4.98 billion for second-hand smoke-related health care costs, including expenditures for babies and children whose mothers either smoked, or were exposed to smoking. •$97 billion in lost productivity costs for employers due to smoking-related illnesses, including sick days and disability. •$2.6 billion paid via Social Security to children who have lost at least one parent due to smoking. •$619 per American taxpayer household towards government expenditures for smoking-caused healthcare costs and related spending. Unless smoking rates decline, more than 6 million children under 18 who are alive today will be dead from smoking-related problems in the future. Every day, roughly 1,000 children under 18 years-old become new, regular smokers
When five big tobacco companies gave the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services a list of 599 cigarette additives in 1994, it was learned that forty-three (43) known carcinogens are in cigarette smoke, whether inhaled by smokers or passively by nearby non-smokers.
Some ingredients in cigarettes, like nicotine, can be addictive, making it hard to quit smoking. Many people who have been smokers for years or decades have claimed that tobacco companies misled them into thinking that cigarettes were safe, or not harmful to one's health.
A new federal law, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, requires tobacco companies to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a detailed list of all the ingredients in their tobacco products by June 22, 2010. This includes all single chemical ingredients (e.g., hydrogen cyanide and ammonia), tobacco leaves, and complex purchased ingredients (e.g., flavor extracts, like chocolate and spices).
Smoking on the Job and Workers Compensation If you are a non-smoker and have become sick because of environmental tobacco smoke at work, you may be entitled to Workers' Compensation benefits.
An increasing number of employees are being awarded Workers' Compensation benefits if they can prove that environmental tobacco smoke in their work place caused medical problems, or worsened any pre-existing medical conditions they already had.
Smoking Injuries and Your Legal Rights If you or a loved one experienced smoking-related injuries, you may be entitled to compensation for current and future expenses, in addition to special legal damages.
Some of the legal factors that an attorney can review with you include:
•Whether you and your loved ones may be entitled to compensation for current and future medical and treatment expenses; •If you and your loved ones can recover lost wages from work, and other out-of-pocket expenses stemming from smoking-related injuries; and •Whether smoking injuries may entitle you and your loved ones to recover damages for pain and suffering. Getting Legal Help for Tobacco and Cigarette Smoking Injuries Scores of product liability, wrongful death, and personal injury lawsuits were filed by smokers and their families against tobacco companies and cigarette makers over the last three decades
If you or a loved one has suffered an illness or injury that might be from smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco, you should first contact your doctor or other healthcare professional.
You may also wish to meet with an experienced attorney to discuss your legal options and any potential rights to a legal remedy for any harm caused from smoking or chewing tobacco.
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