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You're going to love this. I'm shooting this video now, it's the middle of winter in 2014,
there's tons of ice and snow outside. And now I want to share with you a story involving
a woman who fell on black ice in a parking lot, suffered a massive femur fracture and
the property owner turns around says, "It's all your fault. Don't blame me." Would you
like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you this remarkable story.
Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer
practicing law here in the state of New York. We see a lot of slip and fall cases on snow
and ice, especially in the wintertime. And this has been a very long winter and it's
freezing temperatures. So now, in this particular case, a woman was going from her home into
the parking lot to her car. She lived in a condo development. And now, as she's approaching
her car, she doesn't realize it but there's a whole path of black ice. It looks just like
regular black asphalt. So what happens? As she approaches her car, she winds up slipping
falling and suffering a massive femur fracture which is the biggest bone in your body. That's
the bone that connects the hip to your knee. And as a result of that, she now had to go
to the hospital by ambulance. She now needed corrective surgery with internal hardware
known as an 'open reduction internal fixation' to hold the bones in place surgically. And
now had to be in the hospital, undergo rehabilitative care and recuperation. What was interesting
is when she brought a lawsuit against the property owner, the property owner turned
around and said, "Hey don't blame me. This patient didn't see where she was going. She
wasn't looking where she was going. She's responsible for her own injuries." Now I will
tell you, in these slip and fall cases one of the things we look for is to determine
whether or not the person that was injured was in fact partially responsible. What kind
of shoes were they wearing? What type of eyeglasses did they wear? Did they have a hearing problem?
Had they been at that location before? And all of these are critical to understand whether
or not they were familiar with the area and whether or not they may have contributed to
their own injury or accident. This injured victim had nothing whatsoever to do with causing
or contributing to her own injuries. In fact, what was amazing, was that only a day or two
earlier there was a massive snow storm in this area. And now when they cleared out the
snow, they piled all the snow at the top of the hill of this parking lot. The next day
it was warmer weather and the snow started to melt. And as a result of the melt, you
now had water runoff. And then at night, what happened? It ended up freezing. So now in
the morning when this person goes from her home to the car through the parking lot, she
doesn't realize that all of this ice melt now is creating a patch of black ice. What
the property owner failed to do was failed to go out and properly put the snow in the
correct position. So now at the top of the hill but rather at the bottom of the hill,
so knowing that it's going to melt in warmer weather you don't have this freezing effect
afterwards creating black ice. So that's where this property owner went wrong. And in addition,
the property owner failed to salt and sand this parking lot after they had done the snow
plowing. And as a result of that, my client was able to obtain compensation for the harms
and losses she suffered because of the property owner's carelessness. So why do I share this
great information with you? I share it with you just to give an insight and an understanding
into what went on in a slip and fall case on black ice here during one winter in New
York. And if that's happened to you, here in New York, and you do have legal questions,
what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your legal
questions. This is something that I do every single day and I'd love to talk to you. You
can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. That's it for today's
quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, have a wonderful day!