Huntsville Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Every day in the U.S., five workers die in construction accidents. "A lot of construction equipment is dangerous and it's noisy, too," says Matt Reynolds, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. "Being a construction worker is one of the world's most dangerous occupations."

"The problem is, the operator of heavy equipment and the construction worker frequently don't have a good line of site," he explained in a recent interview with the Durham, North Carolina, Herald-Sun.

"The construction worker might have his back turned to the equipment and not hear it approach. Frequently they get into the path of a machine."

One strategy tried over the years to cut down on this kind of construction accident is the familiar beeping backup alarm on commercial vehicles.

The backup alarm is only partly effective, however. For one thing, most construction workers wear hearing protection, which can make the backup alarm seem quieter and farther away than it actually is. Ear protection devices can also interfere with directional hearing.

Another issue is that back alarms are everywhere -- particularly on construction sites. They indicate that a vehicle is backing up somewhere in the vicinity, but they don't tell you that it's right behind you -- and you're in the way.

According to the Georgia State Patrol and emergency officials, two teenagers from Limestone County were killed on Tuesday afternoon after their car collided with a logging truck near Ardmore.

The fatal accident occurred about 5 p.m. on Bain Road, about six miles south of Ardmore, state troopers told the Huntsville Times. 17-year-olds Jordon Young of Toney and John McCowen of Ardmore were the victims of the wrongful death accident.

State troopers say that Young was the driver of the 2002 Chevy Cavalier the boys were in during the truck accident. They suspect that Young ran a stop sign before hitting the logging truck, which was heading southbound on Mooresville Road.

Both boys were killed immediately in the car accident and were pronounced dead at the scene. Both had been wearing seatbelts.

"I'm lying face up in a hospital bed," reads part of the first chapter of Huntsville trucker Mike Sanderson's book about surviving the almost unsurvivable -- a spinal cord injury involving a complete severing of his head from his neck.

"Metal is inserted into my head and both sides of my neck to keep my head intact. There's a tube in my mouth that's connected to a machine that keeps forcing air in and out of my lungs. The metal from the halo has dug so deep into my lower back that flesh is exposed. There's an awful pain in my head and I'm bandaged up like a mummy."

The term for the injury Sanderson survived is "internal decapitation." His head had been completely separated from his spine. The only thing that kept his head on his body was flesh and ligaments.

"They said if I was a skinny guy, my head would have been rolling around in the truck," Sanderson said in a recent article in the Huntsville Times.

Miraculously, after 28 days of partially induced coma, two surgeries, and nearly two months of rehabilitation, Sanderson not only survived but recovered without being paralyzed. Today, 36-year-old Sanderson can walk and is hindered mostly by his inability to move his head from side to side.

"When everybody's telling me that 97 percent of the people in the whole world don't make it through and three percent are paralyzed, and I didn't go through any of that, why not tell the world about it?" he says.

Sanderson's Catastrophic Truck Accident Resulted in an Injury Even Most Neurosurgeons Never See

As part of a national campaign to crack down on drunk driving and prevent DUI-related car accidents, the Huntsville PD is setting up impaired driving checkpoints starting today and going through Labor Day, September 6.

Huntsville PD and the North Alabama Traffic Safety Office are organizing the campaign in connection with the national "Over the Limit, Under Arrest" campaign through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The event occurs every Labor Day and on other holidays with a high incidence of drunk-driving accidents.

Some of the DUI checkpoints have been announced ahead of time, while others will not be announced. Officers from Huntsville, Madison County and the Georgia Highway Patrol will be stopping drivers to check for drug or alcohol impairment. They will also check for valid driver's licenses, proof of insurance and other citable safety violations.

Announced DUI Checkpoints Around Huntsville

On July 22, 37-year-old Barry Sloan and 41-year-old Jonce Hubble were working on a radio tower in Fort McClellan near Anniston, Alabama. A commercial truck hit one of the tower's guy wires, causing the tower to collapse. Sloan and Hubble each fell 40 feet, and Sloan was killed instantly.

After the fatal accident, the family of Barry Sloan has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in east Alabama against the driver of the truck and its owner. The truck was owned by Barnhart Crane and Rigging Company, Incorporated.

According to a statement by Calhoun County Coroner Pat Brown, Sloan was pronounced dead at the scene. Hubble was transported to University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital immediately after the truck accident, but he died later that night in surgery.

Across the U.S., car and truck accidents are the leading cause of fatal accidents on the job. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2,053 fatal work-related transportation accidents in 2008, which accounted for 40 percent of all workplace fatalities. 1,149 of those fatal work accidents were highway fatalities.

Just as with drivers generally, a growing cause of work-related motor vehicle accidents is distracted driving. As we reported in our July 29 post, workers' compensation insurers have been actively involved in campaigns to prohibit texting and cell phone use while driving.

At least 27 states and numerous municipalities, including Huntsville, have made texting while driving a primary traffic offense, and many also limit cell phone use while driving. Those laws are a positive step, but more can certainly be done.

The first step employers can take to reduce work-related car and truck accidents -- and limit their exposure to workers' compensation claims -- is simply to put a policy in place.

Employers Need to Step Up to Reduce Work-Related Traffic Accidents

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, comedian Bernie Mac's wife has filed a wrongful death suit against a doctor who treated him less than a month before his death. Rhonda McCullough is suing dermatologist Rene Earles because he failed to recognize the symptoms of serious cardiopulmonary problems that should have sent Bernie Mac straight to a hospital.

McCullough is seeking a $50,000 judgment against the dermatologist for contributing to Bernie Mac's death through negligence. The delay in treatment caused by Earles's failure to notice obvious symptoms of serious health problems, McCullough argues, contributed to complications, ultimately leading to Bernie Mac's death.

Bernie Mac died on August 9, 2008, at age 50, from complications related to pneumonia. He had chronic inflammatory lung disease.

He was most famous for his roles as Frank Catton in the Ocean's Eleven series, the title character in Mr. 3000, and as the star of The Bernie Mac Show, which earned him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

Doctor Was Treating Bernie Mac for Inflammatory Lung Disease

Isaac Holdsambeck, 19, is the driver of a Ford F-250 that flipped on May 2 at the entrance to Hampton Cove subdivision, injuring two of his passengers and killing a third. That same month, the father of one of those injured filed a personal injury lawsuit against Holdsambeck, who is accused of drunk driving, along with anyone who may have provided alcohol to the teen driver.

Toxicology reports for Holdsambeck were released on August 3 by the state forensics lab in Birmingham. According to police, the reports showed that Holdsambeck was under the influence of both alcohol and marijuana the night of the car accident. He was also driving on a suspended license.

Holdsambeck was arrested that same day. He faces three counts of third-degree assault and a reckless murder charge for the fatal accident. He was released from jail after paying a $75,000 bond.

17 year-old Thomas Huffman Sanders is the passenger who initiated the lawsuit. Bryan Burkett and Justin Gantt, both 18, were also injured in the car accident. 16 year-old Mohammad Fulladi died from his injuries in June.