San Diego Injury Law Blog

Four people suffered injuries, including two teenagers, after a three-vehicle car accident on Mission Ave. in Oceanside. The crash occurred just after 10:00 p.m. on Friday night, and involved a Hyundai Tiburon and a Chevy Silverado truck.

According to news accounts, the cause of the accident has not been determined, but the truck reportedly overturned. Four ambulances were called to the scene, and the victims were taken to local hospitals. Two of the victims suffered serious injuries.

The auto accident lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been impacted by accidental injuries and death. Call (760) 607-1325 for a free consultation.

Here's a good story. As Capt. Thomas Schwabenbauer was on his way to the Marine Combat Center from San Diego last Sunday, he heard a crash as he was traveling on westbound I-10. He looked up to to see an SUV up in the air.

"The first thing I remember thinking was I knew I had to get over there as fast as possible. It was go time," said Schwabenbauer.

The SUV was had a tire failure and rolled several times before stopping, upside down in the right lane.

"When I got to the side of the road, I saw there was a lady inside," he said. "I jumped inside and got her seat belt off, but I noticed her leg was stuck between the car and the ground. We had to rock the car up in order to pull her out."

Once she was removed, Schwabenbauer could see the severity of her injuries, which included major damage to her lower leg. He then used her belt as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding, and comforted the woman to keep her from going into shock.

Schwabenbauer had medical training in the Marine Corp, and used that knowledge at the scene. Authorities have credited Schwabenauer, and his Marine friend Lance Cpl. James Nielsen, with saving the woman's life.

The San Diego accident and injury lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been injured in all types of accidents, including those caused by product defects, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, construction accident. Call (866) 607-1325 for a free consultation.

It's not yet summer, and Riverside County has already had four drownings this year; all boys under the age of five. Near-drowinings are also up. In the prior year, the County had a total of seven drownings.

"We're very concerned," said Victoria Young, a nurse with the county health department. "We definitely have seen a big surge."

In California, drowning is the leading cause of death for children younger than five, with more than 80 percent occurring in backyard pools. In this year's Riverside drownings, two involved children who exited the house through the doggy-door, and the other two involved murky, unmaintained pools.

According to studies, there are more than a million pools in the state without any safety features such as a gate, fence, or net. And officials point out that such safety features are not entirely child-proof. Ultimately, officials say, the only real drowning prevention device is adult supervision.

The personal injury attorneys at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been impacted by accidental injuries and death. Call (866) 607-1325 for a free consultation.

Grandma is a hero, of sorts. Yesterday morning while walking her two grandchildren to school she was hit by a car while shielding the kids from from the accident. According to reports, the three were walking in a crosswalk on Holt Avenue in Santa Ana, with vehicles stopped for them, when a red Nissan Sentra failed to stop.

Seeing the Sentra approaching, grandma stood in front of the children to block them from the collision. Grandma was hit by the car, and thrown onto the hood, and then onto the ground. She was taken to the hospital with scrapes and bruises, and possibly broken bones, but is expected to survive. One of the children was glanced by the car, but not injured.

The accident lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been injured in all types of accidents, including those caused by car accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, and construction accidents. Call (866) 607-1325 for a free consultation.

Ten Southern California hospitals have received penalties of $25,000 each after the California Department of Public Health determined that medical mistakes in care to patients caused, or was likely to cause, serious injuries or death. Los Angeles County had five hospitals on the list, Orange County three and San Diego County two.

The following hospitals were penalized:

1. Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, for failing to ensure the safe and effective administration of medications.

2. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, for failing to accurately implement its blood transfusion policies and procedures.

3. Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, for failing to follow its surgical policies and procedures, resulting in a patient having to undergo a second surgery to remove a foreign object that was left inside the body.

4. Saint Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, for failing to ensure safe and effective use of medications.

5. Whittier Hospital Medical Center in Whittier, for failing to adequately identify a patient prior to a surgical procedure.

6. Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, for failing to follow its policies and procedures for the use and maintenance of respiratory equipment.

7. University of California, San Diego Medical Center in San Diego, for failing follow its surgical policies and procedures, resulting in a patient having to undergo a second surgery to remove a foreign object left in the body during surgery.

8. St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Orange County, for failing follow its surgical policies and procedures, resulting in a patient having to undergo a second surgery to remove a foreign object left in the body during surgery.

9. University of California Irvine Medical Center in Irvine, for failing to prevent falls.

10. University of California Irvine Medical Center in Irvine, for compromising the safety of a patient by failing to timely to investigation of an assault on a patient.

Regulators issued the fines almost a month ago, but postponed making them public because of the Swine flu outbreak.

The malpractice lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families throughout San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles County who have been injured by medical mistakes, in accidents, and all other personal injury matters.

Assembly Bill 496 would require tire dealers in California to disclose the age of a tire before selling it, and informing consumers about the dangers of using older tires. It is easy to spot a worn and potentially dangerous tire, but what about the tire that looks brand new, but is actually many years old? Overtime, adhesives and the rubber used in tires will degrade, even if the tire is not used, greatly increasing the odds of tread separation, and thus an automobile accident. A new-looking tire can actually be very dangerous.

Take for example the story of Ramon Romero. When Romero went to get a new tire for his 12-year-old Ford Explorer, the dealer recommended he use his spare, which had never been used and looked perfect. Little did he know the rubber had become hard and brittle over time. Shortly thereafter, while traveling 65 miles an hour on the freeway near Temecula, Moreno's tire blew. The Explorer rolled, and his 10-year-old brother was ejected and killed.

The Consumer Attorneys of California is calling this bill one of the most important consumer protection bills in the state, and is urging consumers to contact their state representatives.

To read the latest version of the bill click here.

The family of a 6-year-old boy who was killed when a garage door closed on him as filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the manufacturer of the automatic door, as well as against the door's installer and the owners of the home where the boy was killed. According to newspaper articles, the boy was found by his 9-year-old brother pinned under the door, which authorities say caused the boy to die of "compressional asphyxia."

The lawsuit names Mid-America Door Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. alleging that the door's failures were caused by a defect in the product. The lawsuit alleges that the door was not equipped with a motion sensor, which has been required by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission since 1992.

The family is devastated:

"I'm haunted by this every day, and if I would have known he was under the garage [door], then there's no way that I wouldn't have run to him," his mother said at a news conference. "I keep thinking that he was screaming and calling someone and no one was there to help him."

The injury and accident attorneys at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families throughout Southern California who have been injured in accidents, including injuries caused by defective products, car accidents, medical malpractice, motorcycle accidents and all other personal injury matters.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of plane crash in Ramona that killed both passengers. The plane was doing aerobatics when a wing suddenly fell off the home-build plane, causing it to plunge to the ground.

According to several witnesses, the aircraft began to have engine trouble and appeared to stall in the air before losing the wing and falling to ground.

“My whole family was screaming and ran into the house. My youngest daughter ran under the kitchen table,” said witness Eric Barron, a pilot who lives nearby. “It looked like the wing had become partially detached from the airplane and the plane was disintegrating as it was falling down.”

The plane was identified as a Bakeng Deuce, described on its website as "low, slow, and uncomplicated - in harmony with the pure pleasures of basic, simple flight - no cowl vents, no retractable gear, no constant speed prop." The question for investigators is whether this is an accident caused by pilot error, or whether there was some inherent defect in the plan that caused it to fail.

The San Diego accident and injury lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been injured in all types of accidents, including those caused by product defects, car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, construction accident. Call (866) 607-1325 for a free consultation.

Interstate 5 was closed for a period yesterday when a box truck rear-ended a slow-moving big rig in the Camp Pendleton area. The driver of the truck, 49-year-old Henry Wei of Rosmead, was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to witnesses, Wei was traveling at freeway speed when it plowed into the big rig, which was slowing as it approached the Border Patrol inspection station. Witnesses say that there was no evidence that the box truck braked at all before rear-ending the truck ahead. The cab of Wei's truck was crushed, and it took two hours to remove his body.

That Wei did not brake raises interesting liability questions. Either he was not paying attention to the road in front of him - which is fairly commonplace in this day cell phones and texting - or there was some sort of mechanical problem with his truck, which investigators are looking into. It would be interesting to know the age and maintenance history on the truck Wei was driving to learn if the truck was unable to stop because of mechanical issues.

The accident and injury lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families throughout Southern California who have been injured in automobile accidents, truck accidents, product defect cases, work site accidents, dog bites, and other accident cases. Call (866) 607-1325 or complete our online form for a free and confidential consultation.

A tour bus on its way to Colton from San Diego crashed into a freeway median yesterday, critically injuring eight people. According to reports, the bus hit the center divider on the northbound I-215 near Temecula, at the Nuevo Road exit. The bus then crashed through another barrier before coming to rest in the backyard of a private residence.

As many as 45 firefighters responded to the accident, including three helicopters and nine ambulances. Rescuers had to free several passengers who were trapped in the back of the bus, and it took more than an hour to free everyone. The most seriously injured passengers were those riding in the front of the bus.

The tour bus was owned by a charter company called Inland Empire Stages, of Rancho Cucamonga, which, according to records, had two vehicles involved in other crashes over the last 30 months. The cause of the accident is still unknown.

Here’s a KTLA video about the accident:

The Temecula injury lawyers at Walton Law Firm LLP represent individuals and families who have been injured in accidents, including car crashes, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, construction accident, and all other personal injury matters. Call (866) 607-1325 for a free consultation.