Thomas Gelwicks Law Office
Accident & Injury Law
Blue Ash | Cincinnati
Free Initial Consultation
Call 513-421-6688
or submit your case for review
Free Initial Consultation
Call 513-421-6688
or submit your case for review
Empowering Clients
Each family is a system. Although this is a somewhat mechanistic view, it’s valid. Some family systems are functional and some are not. And it all varies largely by degree. Each member is an interlocking and vital presence in that collection of people we call ‘family.’
But when a family member is seriously hurt in an accident, the whole family is affected. And that includes families where there was little emotional intimacy even before the devastating event.
Personal injury lawyers don’t represent just individuals. They go about their work with all the people who lives circle that of the injured party, every day. The human context of family – at its best a valued support system – is crucial when a terrible card has been dealt.
In the most tragic situations, the spouse assumes the role of a LPN. This is when hour-by-hour care is required; the demands are overwhelming. Pills to be counted and timed, therapeutic walks to accompany, lifting the loved one in and out of bed – the list goes on.
Blessed are those who have the hand of kindness waiting for them at every turn, while their bodies and minds recover. At its family-best, there’s no place like home.
Air bags are designed to literally explode. Although everyone knows this, it is commonly heard by me, from clients, that they had no idea the extraordinary power which would be unleashed upon them.
We humans learn best by direct experience. For those unfortunate enough to have an air bag impact their face and torso, the event never ever leaves their memory. Broken noses, damaged eyes, shattered eyeglasses, and fractured jaws can result to the face. Broken shoulders and arms, crushed ribs and chest wall contusions are frequent occurrences.
Air bag deployment has killed some children and many dogs. The safest place for them is the back seat. At the instant of the crash, the entire front seat becomes a warzone.
But for all the bodily injury inflicted by air bags, they have been remarkably effective at saving lives.
Between 1995 and 2002, SUV registrations climbed by 250 percent in the United States. And the conventional wisdom persists that SUVs are safer because of the weight advantage. On average, SUVs weigh 1,300 pounds more than cars. And that extra weight does, in fact, help reduce the risk of injury by more than a third.
However, this large advantage is offset by findings that SUVs are more than twice as likely to roll over in crashes. Children in rollovers are 3 times more likely to be seriously injured. So the size and weight advantages are cancelled by the hazard of the vehicle flipping.
I have represented individuals, both killed and seriously injured, by rollover SUVs. It took Congress too long to require standards to prevent this common occurrence.
It was known for years that legislation was needed, but lobbyists for the manufacturers fought changes. Once the automakers were forced to change, their efforts to improve made a vast difference. The new technologies and engineering, especially electronic stability controls, turned the tide.
But it is shameful that so many people were crushed to death in Ford Explorers and others, before lives became more important than profits.
The American Pet Products Association reports that over one-third of the households in America have dogs. I believe the day is coming when pets will be required to be restrained in moving vehicles
Most social criticism, regarding pets-on-a-ride, has centered on the danger of distracted drivers. This is for good concern, since nearly 60% of dog owners have driven with their passenger pets, according to the Automobile Association of America. In some of the animal-related wrecks we have handled, dogs have leaped into the driver’s lap, interfered with steering wheel operation, and influenced wrongful braking.
But in our experience, the bigger danger of unrestrained dogs is that they become dangerous projectiles in a collision. In one traffic safety study, it was found that, in a crash, a 10-pound dog traveling 50 mph will exert 500 pounds of force against whatever object it strikes. And an 80-pound dog, in a 30 mph crash, will exert nearly 2,400 pounds. These extraordinary statistics underscore the danger of unrestrained dogs.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 25% of all police-reported car accidents involve some form of driver inattention. This is increasingly becoming a larger social issue because of the ever-evolving technological landscape. Today it takes effort not to be distracted while operating a car. Cell phones constantly beep and whirl with alerts for texts, emails and calls.
Despite this, the most common distractions existed long before everyone had their own cell phone. The many offending drivers we have brought claims against have been distracted for reasons not limited to cell phone use. These have included:
As to teenage drivers, Ohio is the 17th best state for safety. Ohio teens have an average of 56.2 crashes per 100,000 drivers. This betters the US average, which is 64.7.
Kentucky is at the other end, the bad end, of the continuum - with 91 fatal crashes involving teen drivers for every 100,000 citizens licensed. According to the federal numbers, this makes Kentucky the fifth worst state in the nation.
The most dangerous drivers are 16-year-olds. And the most deadly crashes are single-car events, connected with night driving or the presence of at least one teen passenger.
I’m 59-years-old, and I remember our 6th grade school debate centered on whether the driving age should be raised to 16 years. So this topic, which gains public momentum every so often, has been around a while.
In England, the minimum driving age is 17; in Germany, it’s 18. On a practical level, it would be difficult to now raise the age requirement. Many responsible 16-year-olds are involved in heavy extracurricular schedules, hold jobs, or take on important family duties.
For many states, the problem has been lessened by some form of graduated licensing. Under such a system, the teens receive driving privileges gradually.
One of the fundamental aspects of this social situation is grounded in human physiological and psychological makeup. According to the National Institutes of Health, the portion of the brain which weighs risk and controls impulses does not develop fully until around age 25.
Driving mistakes are behind 78% of the fatal crashes involving 16-year-olds. For drivers over 20, that figure drops below 60%. It is raw inexperience that makes teens underestimate speed, overcompensate with steering, swerve, and misjudge breaking distance.
Substance abuse is a familiar villain on the landscape of American injury law. It is impossible to grasp the role which misuse of alcohol and drugs plays in causing life-altering bodily damages.
A person beset with substance abuse is a compulsive user of drugs or alcohol, even in the face of negative consequences. Too often, the focus is on the frequency or the amount of alcohol and drug consumption. However, this is a poor measurement because of the unique ways that chemicals are metabolized by individuals. The better index is the impact that alcohol or drugs have on the user, and those surrounding them.
The rate of lawyers suffering from a drinking problem in the United States has been estimated at 15% to 18%. That is a staggeringly high number. This is especially true when one considers that national statistics bear out that 7$ to 10% of the population is alcoholic.
Many theories have been offered as to why lawyers have such a high rate of drinking pathology. Some claim it is the inherently adversarial nature of the profession. They may have a point. But a large number of alcohol addiction experts subscribe to the notion that the disease involves a cellular breakdown. Their biological model is grounded in genetics and points to the intergenerational reality that alcoholism often shows up in family lines.
Whether this discounts environmental influences or not is an open question. Nature and nurture variables in the same equation are often impossible to resolve, because they are so closely related and even intertwined.
The media overwhelmingly focuses on alcohol and drugs within the criminal sphere of American jurisprudence. This is understandable, since arrests are widely reported and the public has a strong interest in knowing these facts. It has been reported that nearly 50% of all crime is directly or indirectly the result of drug abuse.
Less newsworthy are all those injuries caused by substance abuse which is not overtly criminal. Many times the person causing a car wreck is below the Ohio blood alcohol standard, or the drugs in their blood stream elude detection. Four million Americans are addicted to prescription drugs, and nearly 15 million Americans use illicit drugs. Despite those high numbers, often the police are not able to pinpoint evidence sufficiently to effect an arrest.
Those who work to achieve financial compensation for accident victims know that too often the offending party was under the influence.
A study has just been released. It establishes what I have felt true for many decades: alcohol is the most dangerous drug. More dangerous that illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine.
As to addictive powers heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth were deemed most lethal to individuals. But when considering the larger social effects, alcohol is the deadliest, outranking all other substances.
Alcohol is devastating because it is so widely available and is legal. However lethal consequences are extremely widespread, to both drinkers and those around them. There is no substance on earth which has destroyed more marriages, careers and families than alcohol. Although many don’t even think of alcohol as a drug, it impacts society the most.
Overall the research bears out that drugs that are legal cause at least as much damage, if not more damage, than drugs that are illicit.
“Pharming” is increasingly becoming a social problem. This is the practice of using prescription and over-the-counter medicines to get high. This form of drug abuse is a growing trend among teenagers.
Teens often regard pharming as relatively harmless. This illusion is based on the drugs coming from the neighborhood pharmacy rather than from the street. The perception of harmlessness, coupled with ease of availability, makes pharming dangerous.
Increasingly, vehicle collisions are the result of pharming.
The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has shown a correlation between the age of first consumption and later alcohol dependence. A child of 13 years who drinks alcohol has a 47% chance of becoming dependent upon alcohol in his or her life.
If the age of initial exposure is 16 years, then the chance of dependence drops to 30%. And if the person does not start drinking until they are 21, the odds drop to 10%.
The Northeast Community Challenge Coalition states that ordinarily it takes 10-15 years for an adult to become alcoholic.
However youth become alcohol dependent in 6 months to 3 years.
And the majority of alcoholics who begin drinking between the ages of 13-16 will progress to other drugs.
