Personal Injury

July 12, 2019

Toxic Substances and Encinitas Resident Safety

Nobody wants to think about toxic substances that may exist in the drinking water in Encinitas or elsewhere in Southern California. However, companies have disposed of toxic and otherwise harmful substances in ways that result in serious and fatal harms to consumers in California and throughout the country, giving rise to a category of personal injury lawsuits known as toxic tort claims. Toxic tort injuries in a small town in Southern California made national news back in 1996, yet as a recent article in Grist highlights, those toxic substances continue to have relevance.

Toxic Torts Legislation in Hinkley, California

Anyone who has seen the film Erin Brockovich (2000) probably remembers the name Hinkley, a town in Southern California made famous in 1996 when, as the article explains, “a group of residents famously won a massive direct-action arbitration against Pacific Gas and Electric.” The case involved allegations against Pacific Gas and Electric, which ultimately was found responsible for “dumping hexavalent chromium (aka chromium-6), a carcinogen used to suppress rust formation at the Hinkley gas compressor station, into an unlined pond in the ‘50s and ‘60s.” By the 1990s, the chromium-6 had seeped into the groundwater in Hinkley, and many people suffered serious injuries.

June 26, 2019

FDA Will Change How it Approves Medical Devices

by Walton Law Firm

Patients in Vista and elsewhere in Southern California who have suffered injuries as a result of defective medical devices may have been the victims of an outdated medical device approval process. According to a recent article from Global Data Healthcare, patients across the U.S. received medical devices that ended up being dangerous for use and may not have been assessed as well as they could have been by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Now, in response to a report on tens of thousands of deaths caused by dangerous medical devices, the FDA has plans to change the way it approves medical devices for patient use.

Investigative Report Exposes Tens of Thousands of Medical Device-Related Fatalities

May 28, 2019

Preventing Valley Center Summer Injuries

by Walton Law Firm

Although the weather is warm year-round in Valley Center and throughout San Diego County, summer remains a popular time for taking vacations and for getting out of the house for weekend trips. With the school year also nearing its end, parents in Valley Center should get prepared for summer and should be thinking about ways to prevent personal injuries. According to a recent article in Reader’s Digest, there are many different ways in which personal injuries can happen during the summer months, and a lot of them are unexpected. We have a list of some of the most common yet unexpected dangers that typically affect people over the summer. By knowing about injury risks, residents of and visitors to San Diego County can better avoid them.

Common Injury Risks You May be Ignoring

What are some of the most frequent summer injury risks that many people tend to ignore? Take a look at the following:

May 13, 2019

Birth-Related Injuries and Maternal Death Rates in Oceanside

by Walton Law Firm

According to a recent article in USA Today, maternal death rates in the US are the highest in the developed world. Every year more than 50,000 women suffer serious birth-related injuries—700 of those fatal—that could be prevented if healthcare providers followed safety protocols. As the article explains, doctors and nurses often ignore safety recommendations that can prevent birth-related injuries, such as “weighing bloody pads to track blood loss,” or “giving medication within an hour of spotting dangerously high blood pressure to fend off strokes.” As a result of medical negligence, pregnant women suffer severe and sometimes fatal injuries during childbirth, including blood clots and infections.

However, according to an article in Self Magazine, California is doing much better than the rest of the country when it comes to preventing birth-related injuries and maternal deaths. What is different about healthcare in California?

Maternal Death Rate in California is Half That of the Rest of the Country

April 5, 2019

Pool Drain Accident Injuries at Rancho Bernardo Hotels

by Walton Law Firm

One of the great features of any hotel when you are on vacation with your family is an outdoor pool. Even for visitors to Rancho Bernardo who are planning to spend much of their time at the beach, if you are staying at a hotel with a pool, there is a good chance that you and your children will enjoy some time by the poolside. However, pools can be extremely dangerous, and children especially can sustain serious hotel injuries at a pool. While drowning due to swimming inexperience or slipping and falling typically is the primary concern when it comes to hotel pool injuries, there are other ways that guests can get hurt while enjoying the water. Specifically, pool drain accidents and pool filter accidents happen more often than you might think.

Hotel Pools and Circulation Entrapments in Drains

Pools and hot tubs at hotels have drain systems and filter systems that are designed to clean the water and to create circulation. While these systems help to ensure that hotel guests are swimming in clean water, they can also lead to serious personal injuries if proper safety precautions are not taken or if these devices do not undergo regular maintenance. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) refers to many of these injuries that lead to drowning deaths as “circulation entrapments.” In such situations, an injured guest may be able to file a hotel negligence claim.

March 21, 2019

E-Scooters Cause Brain Injuries and Broken Bones in and Around San Diego

by Walton Law Firm

Whether you live in San Marcos or elsewhere in the San Diego County area, it is important to know about electric scooters and the personal injury risks they pose. According to a recent news release from the University of California, new research suggests that e-scooters are tied to high rates of traumatic brain injury (TBI), broken bones, and dislocated joints. Those who sustain these types of injuries on e-scooters require medical attention, and some seemingly less serious injuries also require riders to seek treatment in an emergency department.

Why are e-scooters dangerous, and how should residents around San Diego County respond?

New Study Ties Electric Scooters to Serious Personal Injuries

March 8, 2019

More Concussions in Poway Soccer Players

by Walton Law Firm

More research funds are going toward sports-related concussion studies and concussion risks for youth athletes. We often think about football and other contact sports when we consider traumatic brain injury (TBI) risks, yet many different sports and recreational activities can put young athletes at serious risk of sustaining a concussion.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University found that concussions are more common than we previously thought among female soccer players. Nearly 30% of all soccer injuries are concussions. To put that number in perspective, about 24% of all football injuries are concussions. To put that another way, more girls suffer sports-related concussions playing soccer in high school than do boys who play football.

Girls Soccer Players Suffer Head Injuries More Often Than Boys Soccer Players

January 9, 2019

Brain Injury Research Gets a Boost

by Walton Law Firm

Vista residents and others throughout Southern California who have suffered significant traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) should know that additional new research is being documented in this area all the time. More precisely, researchers continue to investigate the link between concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). According to a recent press release from University of California, Davis, funding from the Pew Foundation will support new initiatives that will involve research into the biochemistry behind brain trauma. The research is part of a broader initiative to investigate and combat TBIs—including concussions—in both youth and professional sports leagues.

Biochemistry, Hits to the Head, and Traumatic Brain Injury

As the press release discusses, we know that behavioral changes take place in the brain after concussions. What we do not know, however, is precisely how the biochemistry of the brain changes, ultimately leading to those mood shifts. Kassandra Ori-McKenney, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at UC Davis, is researching TBIs and biochemistry. Ori-McKenney won fellowship and is the 2018 Pew biomedical scholar. The funding provides $300,000 over the course of four years, during which time Ori-McKenney “will investigate the role of the protein tau in the development of neurodegeneration resulting from traumatic brain injury.” Thus far, we know that there is a “strong correlation with the expression and spread of tau throughout the brain’s circularity.”

October 19, 2018

Hearing Loss May Increase Your Injury Risk in Escondido

by Walton Law Firm

We often consider a variety of risk factors for determining whether a particular person in Escondido is more likely to suffer a personal injury in an accident than another person. For example, we might think about whether a person’s job involves dangerous activities, such as working with heavy machinery or working on scaffolding. Or, we might consider whether a person has to drive on the highway in order to commute to work. Differently, we might consider a person’s age and sex in helping to think through whether that person is at risk of a particularly severe injury in a slip and fall accident, for instance, or in a drowning incident.

What about a person’s ability to hear? According to a recent article in Reuters Health, hearing loss has been linked to a higher risk of unintentional injury. As the article explains, “people who have a lot of trouble hearing may be almost twice as likely to experience an accidental injury as individuals with excellent or good hearing.” This information comes out of a recent study that assessed injury risk for a wide variety of adults between the years 2007-2015.

Hearing Loss Increases a Person’s Risk of Suffering an Injury

October 5, 2018

Concussions May Lead to Parkinson’s Disease

by Walton Law Firm

If you or someone you love suffers a concussion in San Marcos, it is important to know how that traumatic brain injury (TBI) could have effects years later. Much of the current news about head trauma and long-term effects concerns chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease of the brain that researchers believe results from multiple bumps or blows to the head. CTE is not the only possible long-term effect of sustaining a single—or multiple—concussions when you are younger. According to a recent article in Popular Science, a new study published in Neurology suggests that a single concussion “can significantly increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.”

Even a Single, Mild Brain Injury can Have Effects Decades Later

The new study was conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. Their research indicates that the amount of a person’s increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease after sustaining a mild TBI is “contingent on how severe the brain injury was, but even a mild brain injury raised the likelihood of Parkinson’s by as much as 56%.” Some of the most common mild traumatic brain injuries are concussions. To clarify, if you sustain a single concussion in your lifetime, your risk of developing Parkinson’s disease could increase by up to 56% in comparison with a person who has never sustained a concussion or another TBI.