Negligence

If you ever carry a child in a car seat in the back seat of your car you must read this article.

Fatal Distraction, an article published in the Washington Post on March 8, tells us that all kinds of adults have forgotten their child in the car, from rocket scientists, to doctors, to postal workers. If you have forgotten your cell phone at home, you are capable of doing this too.

It’s a tough read but please take the time to do so and pass it on to everyone you know who has a child they carry in the back seat.

Already this year, two little ones have been left to die in the sweltering heat of cars by inattentive adults. In Florida, heat stroke or hyperthermia can happen in a matter of minutes. Please let’s not let any more cases of wrongful death in Florida happen to another child.

Kids and Cars, the advocacy organization says you can prevent this with a few no-cost reminders.

• If you carry a child, put something you’ll need like a handbag, a lunch, an employee badge on the floor board of the back seat. Always open the back door of your vehicle every time you reach your destination – make it a habit. It’s called the Look before you Lock campaign.
• It may sound ridiculous, but put a reminder of the child in the back seat with you. A large stuffed toy that you normally keep in the child seat, replace in the front seat when you drive. It’s a visual reminder that you have a little passenger, sometimes a silent one, in the back seat.
• Another good tip is to arrange to have your day care provider call you if the child does not arrive as scheduled. Many children’s lives could have been saved with a simple phone call.

Always get involved by looking inside cars in a parking lot. Pets can inadvertently be left there too. I challenge you to read this article and not recognize yourself in it. Truly this can happen to anyone who just had their mind elsewhere that day. Pass this important article onto everyone you know who carries children – it could save a life.

If you have any questions regarding child safety or if your child has been invovled in an auto accident, please contact Jacksonville’s top personal injury lawyers at Farah and Farah.

St. Johns County has launched a new campaign to stop underage drinking.

Just on the edge of spring break, “The Party’s Over” was announced by St. Johns County, south and west of Jacksonville by Sheriff David Shoar. Teens will be able to text in anonymously to report anyone who is drinking and under the age of 21. The campaign will be plastered on billboards, along with the numbers.

Underage drinking has gotten out of hand, Shoar says, and for some reason the rates are higher in St. Johns than Duval County where Jacksonville is located.

The death of two teens in Orangedale in January is blamed on an open house party where alcohol was served. A 14-year-old came within losing her life at a house party after she drank too much. Luckily some other kids saw her condition and got her to a hospital.

In a 2008 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, 43.3 percent of high school students in the area said they had used alcohol in the last 30 days. A similar survey of Duval County teens, where Jacksonville is located found 34.4 percent.

Let’s be clear – this campaign is also intended to scare parents who think that they can safely supervise teens drinking in their home. They cannot, but they can lose their home if a teen is harmed or killed. That’s quite a price to pay for being the “cool” parent. Zero Tolerance is the message loud and clear to parents. Period.

As skilled Jacksonville personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah, we would expect to see some lawsuits result from incidents similar to the ones mentioned above. However, the goal is not to arrest underage kids for alcohol possession or sue someone for a bunch of money; instead, we must counsel underage kids about the dangers of alcohol and addiction.

“We’re not giving up on our kids. It just can’t happen. We have to do everything that we can to send the right message,” says Shoar.

Somehow when kids know we are watching, they get the message.

Last May the Florida Legislature passed the Pharmacy Technician Act.  

It is a significant piece of legislation that should keep us all safer from the medication errors made by pharmacy technicians. Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed SB 1360 into law in July 2008.

Senate Bill 1360 brings some justice to the Hippely family. Back in the summer of 2002, Beth Hippely of Lakeland, Florida was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She was taking chemotherapy and the blood thinner, Warfarin, also known as Coumadin.

The pharmacy tech at Walgreens gave her a refill order at ten times the dose for Warfarin. Three weeks on the medication and Beth suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She went into a coma after suffering brain damage and then was put on life support.

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A few stories ago we reported on the young teenage girl who drank herself unconscious and could not be awakened. 

This week she was released from the hospital. If it had not been for the conscious decision by other teens, she might have never woken up.  

There were 60 kids at a party in St. Augustine according to St. Johns County deputies.  Kevin Lovelace, 18 tells Channel 4 that he knew something was wrong when he saw the 14-year-old girl.

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Three St. Johns County Florida teenagers were arrested Saturday for giving a 14-year-old girl so much alcohol that she passed out at an open house party. 

This is a parent’s worst nightmare - an open house party where everyone is invited. The open house was south of St. Augustine, and about 60, mostly juveniles were in attendance.

It’s amazing how fast word spreads on the internet and with texting. 

The young girl’s parents say they thought she was at home in bed.

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The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined three downtown Jacksonville contractors for design and construction flaws that caused the December 6^th collapse of the Berkman Plaza 2 parking garage that killed one and injured 20 other workers.

Nearly $193,000 has been filed against Choate Construction, Southern Pan Services and A.A. Pittman & Sons Concrete.

The companies are alleged to have failed to determine whether the six-foot structure was sound enough to support extra weight from concrete being poured on the top floor.

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It was probably a lot of fun for toddlers to go to Chuck E. Cheese in an overcrowded van, sitting on each other or standing. 

But the ride has ended in a Northside Jacksonville day care center, Kids Creations and More receiving a notice of intent to have its license revoked.

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Rarely do we find out what goes on behind the doors of a day care center. But in this case the director of a Jacksonville child care center is fighting state plans to shut down the center. 

Kid’s Creations and More took the little kids on a field trip to Chuck E.  Cheese. Because they only have one van, they packed nearly 40 kids into a van that seats only 15.

Kids were sitting on top of each other and on the floor, an incredibly unsafe situation. Even in the best of situations a 15-passenger van is one of the most dangerous vehicles on the road. When you double up, it’s doubly dangerous.  And one of the drivers only had a learner’s permit. Another has a criminal record. 

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The nine-year-old boy is both blind and autistic, so getting home on a school bus safely is especially important.  

First Student Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida was in charge of that along with two bus attendants to oversee special students.

But this child was allegedly beaten by the attendants, repeatedly pinching him which left red marks and scratches.

Now his family is suing, naming First Student Inc. and the two attendants. Their evidence- photos they took which are pretty clear.

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It was a freak accident that killed a traffic engineer working over the streets of Jacksonville this week.

The man, 52-year-old Cesar Solomon was in a bucket working on a traffic light. 

The driver of a Jacksonville Transportation Authority bus either didn’t see the flag man or ignored him and struck the truck knocking the man out of the bucket and onto the street where he fell to his death.

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