Connecticut Injury Attorney Blog

A teenage hiker died last Sunday in a tragic fall at Sleeping Giant, a ridge located in Connecticut's Sleeping Giant State Park. Tobias Engel, an 18 year-old high school senior, was hiking alone when he fell about two hundred feet off of a cliff at around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 5. Other hikers saw him fall, and were able to direct the Hamden Fire Department to Engel's location when they arrived on the scene at 5:00 p.m. Emergency responders used an ATV to get him out of the park. Engel was reportedly conscious when they found him. They rushed him to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he died later that day.

The state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which administers the park where the fall occurred, issued a statement indicating that the incident was likely a case of slip and fall. The trail goes very close to the edge of the ridge in the area where Engel fell, a spokesperson said. The case remains under investigation to determine whether the state should alter any of the safeguards or procedures in the park. According to the Hartford Courant, five "cliff rescues" have occurred at Connecticut state parks since 2008, as well as three cases of injured hikers needing help on wooded park trails.

Sleeping Giant is a traprock mountain in southeastern Connecticut, part of the Metacomet Ridge that runs north-south across the state. Its highest point is 739 feet above sea level, and it is a prominent feature of the landscape. It is named because of its resemblance to a reclining human figure. The mountain itself extends for about two miles. The area where Engel fell is known as the "chin."

Cases involving falls and other injuries by hikers bring up questions of premises liability, which is the legal doctrine that holds an owner or manager of property liable for injuries caused by unsafe or dangerous conditions on that property. At the same time, such cases also involve the question of comparative negligence, which is a legal defense to liability in some cases. A defendant can argue that an injured person is at least partly at fault for their injuries, and this argument can apply in the case of risky activities with known dangers. If an injured person is found to be partly at fault, the damage award against the defendant would be reduced by the plaintiff's share of liability. A poll conducted by the North Branford Patch, while not scientific at all, demonstrates the popular notion that people take on at least some of the responsibility in activities such as these.

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Two volunteer firefighters in Portland, Connecticut suffered serious injuries last year while responding to a fire at a duplex home. A backhoe operator clearing snow from the home's driveway on Saturday, January 29, 2011, accidentally ruptured the underground propane tank located behind the house. Propane vented out, and the cold air turned it to a quickly-spreading vapor. The operator alerted residents and left the area. A neighbor called 911, and police and firefighters rushed in to evacuate remaining residents.

Lieutenant Todd Ghent and firefighter Tim Goff arrived at the scene with a portable gas meter. Intending to measure the level of gas in the backyard, they headed toward the tank. The meter reportedly showed a sudden spike in the gas level. Ghent ordered Goff away from the area. An open garage door had allowed gas to pool, since propane is heavier than the surrounding air. A still-unexplained spark ignited the gas before they could get away. A fireball engulfed the two men. As the Middletown Press noted at the time, firefighters then had to deal with two injured colleagues and a house fire. Fire units from surrounding towns responded to help with the fire.

Ghent was taken to Hartford Hospital with second- and third-degree burns to his head, face, and neck, and he was transferred to a burn unit for intensive treatment. He spent three days in the burn unit and was then confined to his house for three weeks. Goff was treated at Middlesex Hospital for burns on his hands and reportedly released the following day. Firefighters extinguished the fire, but the house was effectively destroyed.

A year later, the Hartford Courant interviewed Ghent about his ordeal. He credits instinct for his split-second decision to hold his breath when the propane exploded. The air surrounding the explosion would have been heated to almost 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Had he inhaled, the air would have seared his lungs and killed him. Instead, he dropped to the ground and somehow managed to find his way to a snow bank to put out the fire on his head.

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A freak accident on an elevator in a Midtown Manhattan office building has taken the life of a 41 year-old woman and shocked an entire city. Suzanne Hart died on the morning of December 14, 2011 as she stepped onto the elevator on the way to her job at an advertising firm. With the elevator doors still open, the car suddenly lurched up while she was halfway in. The car stopped between the first and second floors, trapping her between the elevator and the wall and crushing her to death. It took rescue workers an hour to get two other passengers, who suffered no physical injuries, out of the elevator. Hart was pronounced dead at the scene, but her body could not be retrieved until much later in the day.

Elevator accidents are rare but provocative occurrences. New York City boasts more than 60,000 elevators, according to the New York Times, and they are an essential feature of the city's many tall buildings. There were 53 accidents involving elevators in 2011 with three fatalities. The most recent death in an elevator accident prior to this one occurred in September, when a worker for elevator maintenance company Transel Elevator, Inc. fell down an elevator shaft at a building in the Garment District.

Elevators are such a common part of everyday city life that accidents such as these are difficult to imagine, seeming more like something out of a horror movie. In reality, elevators are just one more type of mechanical device on which we rely, but which need regular inspection and maintenance. Much like a car or an airplane, any number of failures could lead to tragedy. A famous story that has already achieved urban legend status illustrates the risks and liabilities. A doctor in Houston, Texas was killed in 2003 when a malfunction caused the elevator doors to close as he entered the car. He was trapped between the doors as the car quickly rose and partially decapitated him. Investigators concluded that a maintenance worker wired the car incorrectly, directly leading to the accident. The doctor's family sued the elevator company for wrongful death and settled in 2004.

Property owners, landlords, and the maintenance companies they employ have a duty to maintain reasonably safe premises, and they could be liable for injuries or deaths that occur if they breach this duty. The investigation into the accident that caused Hart's death is still ongoing, but preliminary reports have indicated that Transel Elevator, the same company that lost an employee in the September accident, was performing electrical maintenance on the elevator car hours before the accident. This is reportedly the focus of the investigation by the city's Department of Buildings. Whatever the specific cause of the accident, it is remarkable because of the seemingly simultaneous failure of all the elevator's safety mechanisms, which are supposed to prevent movement of the car while the doors are open.

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A pedestrian accident in Stonington, Connecticut demonstrates the dangers posed by damage to roads and other public spaces throughout the state and the country. The Mystic River Press reports on Jessica Post, who suffered leg injuries in a fall caused by a sinkhole. Her family has apparently requested repairs to the sinkhole in front of their house multiple times, and the city has patched it on several occasions. The sinkhole continues to appear because of, literally, deeper problems with the city's infrastructure.

An obsolete drainage system installed in the neighborhood in the 1940's is the suspected cause of the sinkhole. The system may also be responsible for flooding in the neighborhood. Although upgrades to this system are rather clearly necessary, the city simply lacks the funding to make all of the necessary upgrades and repairs to city systems. City officials estimate that repairs to the Post family's street could cost as much as $80,000. As more and more roads, drainage systems, and other public utilities decay, more accidents and injuries are sure to follow.

A 2009 analysis of data from the Federal Highway Administration, conducted by transportation advocacy group The Road Information Project (TRIP), reportedly found that only 34 percent of Connecticut's roads were in "good" condition. The national average for roads ranked "good" is only 51 percent, but that still puts Connecticut low in the rankings. TRIP's research suggests that poor road conditions play a major role in as much as one-third of the fatal traffic accidents or Connecticut streets and highways. It further found that 45 percent of Connecticut's roads are in "poor or mediocre condition," costing the state's drivers an additional $847 million a year in maintenance costs.

The owner or manager of property is typically liable for dangerous conditions on that property that cause someone injury, but holding state or local governments accountable for damages caused by dangerous road conditions can be tricky. Everyday government bureaucracy is a factor, but governments can also limit the legal ability of individuals to sue them. Many require a series of notices and acts, such as notice of the dangerous condition and an opportunity to repair the condition, before a lawsuit is authorized. Laws often set a very limited window of time, such as 180 days, during which an injured person may file suit. Establishing causation may also prove difficult, as different levels of government may have responsibility for different parts of a roadway, and private contractors may also be involved.

Continue reading "Accidents, Injuries Result from Connecticut's Crumbling Infrastructure" »

OSHA's Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) recognizes plants and other sites as model workplaces that demonstrate the "highest levels" of employee protection and safety. Aside from being a great public relations tool, "star" status in the VPP program exempts work sites from regular inspections, and protects the companies operating them from punishment for standard violations if the violations are promptly corrected. Once in VPP's star program, companies are re-evaluated every three to five years.

So one would think that companies with "star" status in the VPP program would have exemplary workplace and employee safety records? Turns out that is not the case in Connecticut. For example, Covanta Energy operates a waste-to-energy plant in Wallingford, Connecticut. In 2007, while an application by Covanta for recognition of the plant by OSHA as a model workplace was pending, one of the plant's employees, Robert Gootkin, was pinned against a wall and crushed to death by a hopper lid. According to the victim's brother, Gootkin had been working a 12-hour overnight shift alone when the accident occurred, and it took facility personnel 30 minutes to respond to alarms that were triggered by the accident. In response to the accident, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill requiring operators of solid waste facilities to have at least two employees or a camera in the work area when waste is being fed into a hopper. Covanta lobbied against the bill.

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