Chicago Personal Injury Blog

Get the care you need after a car accident

On behalf of of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Monday, February 19, 2018.

Car accidents occur each and every day, sometimes causing massive damage and loss of life, while other times only seeming to cause damage to the vehicles. It is always good to avoid injuries in a car accident, but some accidents leave victims with injuries they do not realize they have until hours or even days after the accident takes place.

Unfortunately, if a victim does not receive proper medical care after a car accident and the injury goes undiscovered, the injury may worsen and require much more aggressive treatment.

A truck accident can cause many types of injuries

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Tuesday, January 9, 2018.

You never want to be part of any type of motor vehicle accident, as you understand that this could result in serious injury or even death.

As the driver of a passenger vehicle, an accident with a truck is something you want to avoid at all costs. Due to the size disparity, this type of crash can put you in a bad position.

3 interesting points about semitruck crashes

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Monday, November 27, 2017.

Semitruck crashes are often preventable events. If semitruck drivers ensure the trucks are ready to head out and that they are ready to drive, they can easily prevent some crashes. If other drivers on the road take steps to make sure that they are driving safely, accidents can be avoided.

Unfortunately, there will always be unsafe drivers on the road. Whether these are truckers or not, innocent people can suffer injuries or die because of the unsafe driving. Here are some interesting things to consider about semitruck crashes.

Factors that lead to plane crashes put lives at risk

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Thursday, October 12, 2017.

Aircraft are built to withstand high winds, cold and hot temperatures that vary quickly and to hold thousands of pounds of weight. They have complex electrical systems and highly trained pilots. Despite this, planes do crash often enough for those crashes to cause concern among travelers.

There are dozens of reasons why something could go wrong before, during or after a flight. Some of the possible causes of plane crashes include pilot errors, structural problems, Federal Aviation Administration regulation violations, negligence of Federal Air Traffic Controllers and faulty equipment. On-board violence and other issues may also result in a crash.

Aviation injuries present complex legal issues

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Tuesday, September 5, 2017.

As our world grows ever more interconnected, its dangers also grow more complicated. Modern people must consider threats that many of our historical predecessors never even thought about. One such danger that faces many Americans each year is the possibility of suffering injuries or even dying in an aviation accident.

While airplanes generally enjoy an impressive safety record, due to the level of training a pilot must undergo to obtain his or her pilot's license, accidents do still happen. When aviation accidents do occur, they present complicated legal issues for those who suffer harm in them.

Did a nursing home cover up your loved one's abuse?

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Wednesday, July 19, 2017.

It's always a difficult decision when you need to place a loved one in an assisted living or nursing home facility. In many cases, doing so is a medical or financial necessity. Not everyone with an elderly parent can retire or afford to hire around-the-clock in-home nursing staff. Nursing homes exist to provide care to those who are no longer able to do so for themselves. You likely did research before placing your loved one in a facility, trying to ensure that you found a place that was safe, clean and respectful. Unfortunately, Illinois has a poor history when it comes to nursing home care.

It only takes one abusive aide, nurse or orderly to traumatize or injure your loved one. Discovering signs of abuse on an elderly loved one can be heart-wrenching. Realizing that the facility has covered up the issue of abuse or neglect is even worse. Unfortunately, some nursing homes have a culture of silence or active cover-ups when it comes to mistreatment of residents. Medical notes and records may get altered to include explanations, however thin, for injuries or bedsores. Records about who worked when may become unavailable or even get changed to make it harder to find the truth.

Power morcellators can kill, patients suffer greatly before dying

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in blog on Wednesday, June 14, 2017.

Patients who seek medical care assume that their doctors have the proper tools to care for them. While there are countless tools that doctors can use that don't have ill effects on patients, there are some that can kill them. When a procedure or device is associated with risks, the patient must be told of the dangers and then consent to the procedure with those risks in mind.

One device that has proven especially deadly is the power morcellator. This device was used frequently up through a black box warning issued by the Food and Drug Administration in 2014 to remove fibroids from the uterus. It was also used in hysterectomies.

Distracted driving may be far more common than you think

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in Car Accidents on Friday, April 21, 2017.

The use of cellphones, smartphones and other devices seems ubiquitous today. The National Safety Council says that distracted driving related to the use of technological devices is an epidemic. For that reason, the safety advocacy group has declared April as Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Many people in the Chicago area may be aware that distracted driving occurs - but most people are likely unaware how frequently the problem occurs on our roads.

In late 2016 and early 2017, Zendrive conducted a large-scale study to determine how widespread the problem has become, according to KXLY News. Between December 2016 and February of this year the driving analytics company analyzed 570 million car trips that traveled a combined 3.6 billion miles. The study revealed that distracted driving is not as occasional as you may think.

Can I recover financial damages if my spouse was injured?

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in Personal Injury on Thursday, March 23, 2017.

If your husband or wife suffered a severe, debilitating or disabling injury, you will probably lose certain marital benefits that you've enjoyed since the onset of your marriage. Some of those benefits are readily apparent, like if your spouse regularly cooked your dinners and performed other household chores. Other benefits may not be apparent, like the loss of society and companionship.

In legal terms, when a spouse is injured - and the non-injured spouse suffers the loss of marital benefits - lawyers refer to it as the loss of consortium. An uninjured spouse can incorporate his or her loss of consortium claims into the injured spouse's personal injury claims in many cases.

Pharmacy Negligence Debate Revived after Chicago Investigative Report Reveals Flaws

On behalf of Rapoport Weisberg & Sims P.C. posted in Medical Malpractice on Thursday, February 9, 2017.

In the last post, this blog discussed a Chicago Tribune investigation that uncovered problems with filling prescriptions in pharmacies throughout the Chicagoland area. A reporter sought to have two prescriptions filled at more than 250 area pharmacies. The common medications are known to interact with each other, producing severe muscle breakdown in the human body.

This is no minor issue, as the effect of the harm from the drug interaction could be fatal. Roughly 52 percent of the pharmacies filled the prescriptions without even providing the reporter with any warnings of the potential harm that the combination of the drugs could produce.

Officials, Including Senator Dick Durbin, Speak Up

The story gained national attention -- including calls for reform at the state and national levels to better protect consumers from medication errors, according to the Chicago Tribune. Carmen Catizone, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, says that each state should pass stronger laws to ensure that pharmacists counsel patients when filling their prescriptions.