Atlanta, Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer
Atlanta personal injury lawyer blog
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Georgia Baby Dies in Unlicensed Childcare
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Good Samaritan Saves Cobb County Girl from Pit Bull
Friday, February 19, 2010
Georgia Teacher On Trial for Classroom Striptease
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Gwinnett County Charges Vehicular Homicide in Texting Case
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Emory Sleep Study Death Stirs Controversy
Saturday, January 23, 2010
How Did a Child Fall Down a MARTA Elevator Shaft in Atlanta?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Georgia Cracks Down On Child Pornography
Monday, January 18, 2010
Atlanta Crime Attributed to Youth Anticipation of Early Death
Georgia Five-Year-Old Killed by Own Grandmother
Monday, January 4, 2010
Michael Neff Quoted in Atlanta Journal Constitution
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Protect Yourself This Holiday Season
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Atlanta Father Convicted of Fatally Beating Daughter
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Male Nurse Arrested; Could Have 100 Victims
Monday, November 30, 2009
Atlanta’s Abysmal Emergency Response Time
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Forbes Names Atlanta US’s Most Toxic City
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Local Hospital has New Gamma Knife
Friday, October 30, 2009
Lead Contaminated Soil Right in the Middle of Atlanta?
Friday, October 23, 2009
Off Duty Officers Think Fast to Save 13-Year-Old From Sexual Assault
Monday, October 19, 2009
15-Passenger Commuter Van Overturns, Kills 3
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Sandy Springs Incident Illustrates Why Atlanta is 4th in the Nation for Road Rage
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Swine Flu Vaccine to Arrive in Metro Atlanta Today
Monday, October 5, 2009
Atlanta Scalding Incident Illustrates Childhood Burn Dangers
Friday, October 2, 2009
Atlanta Colleges Increasingly Unsafe – How to Protect Your College Student
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Atlanta Initiative Aims to Stamp Out Child Prostitution
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Japan-Inspired Education Campaign Encourages Metro Atlanta Parents to “Be There”
Monday, September 21, 2009
Atlanta Driving Habits Dramatically Transformed by Recession
Monday, September 7, 2009
Atlanta Hijacking Raises Grave Concerns About School Bus Safety
Friday, September 4, 2009
Many Atlanta Area Pools Found Improperly Chlorinated and pH Balanced
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Cobb County Emergency Alert System Now Works with Cell Phones, Text Messages
Monday, July 13, 2009
Atlanta 4th Worst for Traffic (But Don't Lose Hope Quite Yet)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
MARTA and the Washington D.C. Metro: What do they have in common?
A six month old Georgia boy died last week due to an embolism associated with bronchitis. By the time his babysitter took him to the hospital, the baby boy was already dead.
Riverdale Police Chief Samuel Patterson explained to AJC that when the child arrived at Southern Regional Medical Center, his body was already stiff, his lungs full of fluid. Rigor mortis was already setting in before the babysitter sought help. A preliminary autopsy identified the cause of death as an embolism, while a more conclusive report was pending on the return of toxicology results.
The babysitter will face charges, though the police are satisfied with the initial results to say that there was no foul play.
According to Patterson, the six month old's mother was desperate to find someone to watch her son while she worked the overnight shift. Both the babysitter and the baby's mother advertised on Craigslist, a popular online classified site. While the police are unsure which of them approached the other, Patterson described them as "satisfied" with the knowledge that the two women met through Craigslist, where the babysitter offered her services.
The police chief has indicated that he feels the blame for this tragic death rests with the babysitter, who the dead child's mother trusted to be responsible with the care of her son in a time when she had very few choices.
"Had it been left with the right person, I would hope that the child would still be alive today. Quite frankly, the child was dead before it left home because the charge nurse at the hospital said rigor mortis had already set in [by the time the child arrived at the hospital]," he said.
The babysitter was watching the now deceased six month old, along with two other unrelated children, at the Hometown Inn on Highway 85 in Riverdale when this tragedy took place. She faces state and local charges for running an unlicensed daycare. The woman's husband, who was also present and described the child dying of bronchitis as "whiny," was arrested by police when they discovered that he had a warrant for unpaid child support in Carroll County.
The other two children were thankfully unharmed, and returned to their parents by police.
It is always difficult to say what might have happened in other circumstances. If the child had been with his mother, or if he had been in the care of a trained and licensed childcare provider, it is possible that he would still have died. However, it is impossible to know that now. This woman, who advertised herself as a childcare professional to a working mother in a tight position, failed to respond to a clear emergency in a timely manner. Not only did the child die, but the police have indicated that he was dead before the woman even left the hotel where she was staying with the children.
It is very possible that with prompt and attentive care, this baby would still be alive, and this fact highlights the great trust place in their daycare providers, as well as the parents' responsibility to ensure that those providers are capable of living up to that trust.
Riverdale Police Chief Samuel Patterson explained to AJC that when the child arrived at Southern Regional Medical Center, his body was already stiff, his lungs full of fluid. Rigor mortis was already setting in before the babysitter sought help. A preliminary autopsy identified the cause of death as an embolism, while a more conclusive report was pending on the return of toxicology results.
The babysitter will face charges, though the police are satisfied with the initial results to say that there was no foul play.
According to Patterson, the six month old's mother was desperate to find someone to watch her son while she worked the overnight shift. Both the babysitter and the baby's mother advertised on Craigslist, a popular online classified site. While the police are unsure which of them approached the other, Patterson described them as "satisfied" with the knowledge that the two women met through Craigslist, where the babysitter offered her services.
The police chief has indicated that he feels the blame for this tragic death rests with the babysitter, who the dead child's mother trusted to be responsible with the care of her son in a time when she had very few choices.
"Had it been left with the right person, I would hope that the child would still be alive today. Quite frankly, the child was dead before it left home because the charge nurse at the hospital said rigor mortis had already set in [by the time the child arrived at the hospital]," he said.
The babysitter was watching the now deceased six month old, along with two other unrelated children, at the Hometown Inn on Highway 85 in Riverdale when this tragedy took place. She faces state and local charges for running an unlicensed daycare. The woman's husband, who was also present and described the child dying of bronchitis as "whiny," was arrested by police when they discovered that he had a warrant for unpaid child support in Carroll County.
The other two children were thankfully unharmed, and returned to their parents by police.
It is always difficult to say what might have happened in other circumstances. If the child had been with his mother, or if he had been in the care of a trained and licensed childcare provider, it is possible that he would still have died. However, it is impossible to know that now. This woman, who advertised herself as a childcare professional to a working mother in a tight position, failed to respond to a clear emergency in a timely manner. Not only did the child die, but the police have indicated that he was dead before the woman even left the hotel where she was staying with the children.
It is very possible that with prompt and attentive care, this baby would still be alive, and this fact highlights the great trust place in their daycare providers, as well as the parents' responsibility to ensure that those providers are capable of living up to that trust.
Labels: atlanta, atlanta child safety attorney, atlanta personal injury attorney, child neglect, child safety, Georgia, wrongful death
An unnamed seven-year-old is recovering now from a severe wound to her leg which she received when she was attacked by a pit bull while walking home last week.
The mauling injury was serious, but could have been much worse if not for a bystander who observed the attack and reacted quickly. Cobb County police believe that in all likelihood, without this good Samaritan's intervention the girl would have been killed.
“It was bad," said Sgt. Dana Pierce of the Cobb County Police. "But it could have been worse had he not intervened.”
The police officer described the events to the local media. The young girl was walking in the Valley View mobile home park near Marietta alone when the incident took place last Tuesday. The dog, which had roamed one street over from its owner’s home, approached the girl then attacked her aggressively, doing serious damage to her leg before the Good Samaritan was able to intervene. The man, who witnessed the unprovoked attack, came to the girl's aid with a piece of wood.
Luckily, the bystander was able to separate the dog and the girl, and then rush the girl to WellStar Kennestone Hospital. At Kennestone, Pierce explained, and off-duty police officer heard what had happened and reported the attack to the Cobb County police.
The dog, a 115lb pit bull, was signed over to animal control to be euthanized and tested for rabies.
The injured girl was later transported to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where her condition was upgraded. Pierce described the injury to her leg as severe. She will, without a doubt, suffer from this injury for some time.
This is not the first time that the issue of dogs attacking children has come up on this blog. I wrote about it before, early last month, when a mother killed a dog as it attacked her young daughter. The CDC estimates something like 4.5 million people a year are injured by dog bites in the United States alone. Of those bitten, approximately one in five requires medical attention. Many even require reconstructive surgery. The bills for these injuries cost Americans huge sums of money every year. Children are among those most at risk in these situations, both because of their size - a seven-year-old can be only too easily overwhelmed by a dog, especially one as large as 115lbs - and the likelihood that they will not know how to respond in the event of a dog attack.
This incident, like that one, only serve to once again remind us all of dog owners’ responsibility to see that their dogs are properly trained and socialized. And, unlike in this unfortunate case, secured somewhere so that they are not a danger to others in the neighborhood.
The pit bull’s owners will likely face charges as a result of this attack.
The mauling injury was serious, but could have been much worse if not for a bystander who observed the attack and reacted quickly. Cobb County police believe that in all likelihood, without this good Samaritan's intervention the girl would have been killed.
“It was bad," said Sgt. Dana Pierce of the Cobb County Police. "But it could have been worse had he not intervened.”
The police officer described the events to the local media. The young girl was walking in the Valley View mobile home park near Marietta alone when the incident took place last Tuesday. The dog, which had roamed one street over from its owner’s home, approached the girl then attacked her aggressively, doing serious damage to her leg before the Good Samaritan was able to intervene. The man, who witnessed the unprovoked attack, came to the girl's aid with a piece of wood.
Luckily, the bystander was able to separate the dog and the girl, and then rush the girl to WellStar Kennestone Hospital. At Kennestone, Pierce explained, and off-duty police officer heard what had happened and reported the attack to the Cobb County police.
The dog, a 115lb pit bull, was signed over to animal control to be euthanized and tested for rabies.
The injured girl was later transported to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where her condition was upgraded. Pierce described the injury to her leg as severe. She will, without a doubt, suffer from this injury for some time.
This is not the first time that the issue of dogs attacking children has come up on this blog. I wrote about it before, early last month, when a mother killed a dog as it attacked her young daughter. The CDC estimates something like 4.5 million people a year are injured by dog bites in the United States alone. Of those bitten, approximately one in five requires medical attention. Many even require reconstructive surgery. The bills for these injuries cost Americans huge sums of money every year. Children are among those most at risk in these situations, both because of their size - a seven-year-old can be only too easily overwhelmed by a dog, especially one as large as 115lbs - and the likelihood that they will not know how to respond in the event of a dog attack.
This incident, like that one, only serve to once again remind us all of dog owners’ responsibility to see that their dogs are properly trained and socialized. And, unlike in this unfortunate case, secured somewhere so that they are not a danger to others in the neighborhood.
The pit bull’s owners will likely face charges as a result of this attack.
Labels: animal attack, animal attack lawyer, animal safety, atlanta, dog attack, dog attack lawyer, dog bite, dog mauling, dog safety, Georgia
Having turned down a plea deal, former Southwest DeKalb High School chorus teacher Nathan Grigsby will be going to trial for allowing several of his male students to engage in a "Chippendales style" performance in his classroom during class time.
In 2008, Grigsby allegedly allowed three male students to strip out of their clothing and dance in a sexually explicit style. They gave lap dances, manhandled female students, and performed simulated sex acts on them. According to Solicitor-General Robert James, Grigsby provided the music himself - “Meeting in My Bedroom” by Silk.
“There were lewd caresses and gropes all in the presence of a teacher,” James said. “Under the law, if you have custody and control of kids, you are held to a higher standard. You don’t get to just turn your head.”
Grigsby was terminated from his teaching position when video of the performance surfaced on Facebook. He is being charged with six counts of indecency, and four counts of contributing to the deprivation of a minor. His trial is slated to begin in March. A judge recently granted him the extra time to prepare his case after having dismissed his original attorney. The two of them had apparently had a disagreement over his plea.
Grigsby's new attorney, Jackie Patterson, seems optimistic.
“I’m excited about trying this case and presenting witnesses to show he had no knowledge of what took place,” Patterson said.
The students involved have come to their former teacher's defense, according to Patterson. They wanted him to keep his job, and have continued to be supportive as this case turns toward a future trial. Patterson has said that they are willing to testify on Grigsby's behalf, supporting the claim that he did not know the nature of their performance and should not be held responsible for their actions.
“It is no question that Mr. Grigsby had no knowledge that these kids would commit these sex acts and put them on video. When the kids started performing these acts, it took him totally off guard,” Patterson said. “You can’t hold a teacher accountable for everything a child does.”
While it is true that a teacher may not be able to predict everything that will happen in his class, it is his job to control and oversee the behavior of his students. There is no question that what took place in his classroom was inappropriate, and potentially offensive or even hurtful to students in the class who could have been less enthusiastic for the display. It is also, quite simply, inappropriate behavior for school, and for teenagers in the company of an adult. As a teacher, it was expected that Grigsby control his class and look out for the wellbeing of his students. It was also expected that he would provide discipline in the event where that control is lost. Perhaps he honestly was simply taken so entirely by surprise that he failed to respond in a timely manner, and perhaps he felt that he did regain control of the situation adequately, but this story is without a doubt troubling.
None of the students were charged in this case.
In 2008, Grigsby allegedly allowed three male students to strip out of their clothing and dance in a sexually explicit style. They gave lap dances, manhandled female students, and performed simulated sex acts on them. According to Solicitor-General Robert James, Grigsby provided the music himself - “Meeting in My Bedroom” by Silk.
“There were lewd caresses and gropes all in the presence of a teacher,” James said. “Under the law, if you have custody and control of kids, you are held to a higher standard. You don’t get to just turn your head.”
Grigsby was terminated from his teaching position when video of the performance surfaced on Facebook. He is being charged with six counts of indecency, and four counts of contributing to the deprivation of a minor. His trial is slated to begin in March. A judge recently granted him the extra time to prepare his case after having dismissed his original attorney. The two of them had apparently had a disagreement over his plea.
Grigsby's new attorney, Jackie Patterson, seems optimistic.
“I’m excited about trying this case and presenting witnesses to show he had no knowledge of what took place,” Patterson said.
The students involved have come to their former teacher's defense, according to Patterson. They wanted him to keep his job, and have continued to be supportive as this case turns toward a future trial. Patterson has said that they are willing to testify on Grigsby's behalf, supporting the claim that he did not know the nature of their performance and should not be held responsible for their actions.
“It is no question that Mr. Grigsby had no knowledge that these kids would commit these sex acts and put them on video. When the kids started performing these acts, it took him totally off guard,” Patterson said. “You can’t hold a teacher accountable for everything a child does.”
While it is true that a teacher may not be able to predict everything that will happen in his class, it is his job to control and oversee the behavior of his students. There is no question that what took place in his classroom was inappropriate, and potentially offensive or even hurtful to students in the class who could have been less enthusiastic for the display. It is also, quite simply, inappropriate behavior for school, and for teenagers in the company of an adult. As a teacher, it was expected that Grigsby control his class and look out for the wellbeing of his students. It was also expected that he would provide discipline in the event where that control is lost. Perhaps he honestly was simply taken so entirely by surprise that he failed to respond in a timely manner, and perhaps he felt that he did regain control of the situation adequately, but this story is without a doubt troubling.
None of the students were charged in this case.
Labels: atlanta, child safety, child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, Dekalb County, Georgia, teen safety, teenagers
"Obviously, this is a case in which they are pushing the envelope and trying to establish a test case," said Larry Delan, the lawyer representing the first Gwinnett County woman to be charged with vehicular homicide for texting while driving.
Someone like Lori Reineke, forty-eight, might not be the first person that comes to mind when we picture someone endangering others by texting on the road. Normally when stories about the dangers of texting while driving come up, the focus is on younger drivers, those in their teens or early twenties. However, if the scene police describe is accurate, Reineke serves as a reminder that dangerously distracted driving knows no one age.
According to police, Reineke was texting when she hit James Eaton III, also forty-eight, in a crosswalk last October. She behaved responsibly, in most respects. She had a green light. The crossing signal was red. Reineke was not speeding when she hit and killed Eaton. The only mistake Reineke made in this version of events was texting while driving.
And had she not been texting, the police feel the outcome of this incident may have been different. Reineke might have seen Eaton in time to stop, had her attention not been divided between the road and her cell phone.
Cpl. David Schiralli, police spokesman, explained, "Investigators saw this as a contributing factor. He was crossing against the light, which would be another contributing factor. There may be more than one."
Reineke's arrest follows months of investigation by Gwinnett county police. Schiralli did not disclose what prompted investigators to believe texting was an issue in this case, but the result of that lead was a warrant claiming that Reineke caused Eaton's death as a result of texting while driving. She is charged with vehicular homicide, reckless driving, failure to exercise due care and engaging in actions which distract from the safe operation of a motor vehicle. The day after her arrest was released, having posted the $34,900 bond.
Delan, Reineke’s attorney, maintains that the charges against his client are entirely baseless. He tells Reineke's version of the story, in which the woman was not texting at all when this accident occurred. She was not distracted, and could not have been distracted by texting since she was not engaging in it - Delan maintains that it was poor driving conditions that caused the accident.
"It was dark, it was rainy and she just didn't see him in time," Delan said.
Whether or not Reineke was texting when the crash occurred is certainly something which needs to be established to fully understand whether or not these charges are founded. Not being involved in the case, it isn't for me to judge who is right and who is wrong. Pedestrians who cross against traffic, especially when visibility is poor, are putting themselves in a situation of increased risk. On the other hand, drivers are always responsible for being aware of their surroundings and doing all they are capable of to avoid collisions with pedestrians. In either event, this represents an interesting step in terms of how distracted driving accidents are charged here in Georgia. I will be following this case and will report back as soon as new developments emerge.
Someone like Lori Reineke, forty-eight, might not be the first person that comes to mind when we picture someone endangering others by texting on the road. Normally when stories about the dangers of texting while driving come up, the focus is on younger drivers, those in their teens or early twenties. However, if the scene police describe is accurate, Reineke serves as a reminder that dangerously distracted driving knows no one age.
According to police, Reineke was texting when she hit James Eaton III, also forty-eight, in a crosswalk last October. She behaved responsibly, in most respects. She had a green light. The crossing signal was red. Reineke was not speeding when she hit and killed Eaton. The only mistake Reineke made in this version of events was texting while driving.And had she not been texting, the police feel the outcome of this incident may have been different. Reineke might have seen Eaton in time to stop, had her attention not been divided between the road and her cell phone.
Cpl. David Schiralli, police spokesman, explained, "Investigators saw this as a contributing factor. He was crossing against the light, which would be another contributing factor. There may be more than one."
Reineke's arrest follows months of investigation by Gwinnett county police. Schiralli did not disclose what prompted investigators to believe texting was an issue in this case, but the result of that lead was a warrant claiming that Reineke caused Eaton's death as a result of texting while driving. She is charged with vehicular homicide, reckless driving, failure to exercise due care and engaging in actions which distract from the safe operation of a motor vehicle. The day after her arrest was released, having posted the $34,900 bond.
Delan, Reineke’s attorney, maintains that the charges against his client are entirely baseless. He tells Reineke's version of the story, in which the woman was not texting at all when this accident occurred. She was not distracted, and could not have been distracted by texting since she was not engaging in it - Delan maintains that it was poor driving conditions that caused the accident.
"It was dark, it was rainy and she just didn't see him in time," Delan said.
Whether or not Reineke was texting when the crash occurred is certainly something which needs to be established to fully understand whether or not these charges are founded. Not being involved in the case, it isn't for me to judge who is right and who is wrong. Pedestrians who cross against traffic, especially when visibility is poor, are putting themselves in a situation of increased risk. On the other hand, drivers are always responsible for being aware of their surroundings and doing all they are capable of to avoid collisions with pedestrians. In either event, this represents an interesting step in terms of how distracted driving accidents are charged here in Georgia. I will be following this case and will report back as soon as new developments emerge.
Labels: atlanta, driving, driving and cell phones, driving and technology, driving and texting, Georgia, Gwinnett County cell phone vehicular homicide
The family of Brandon Harris, a twenty-five year old man who died last month during a sleep apnea test, has called for the closure of the Emory Healthcare Sleep Clinic until Harris's death can be reviewed.
While Emory has issued a statement that Harris's death was the result of a sudden cardiac arrest, and that the hospital attended to this crisis properly, Harris's family tells a different story. They describe a situation where Brandon Harris failed to receive timely attention and care from the hospital staff, and claim that it was medical negligence which took his life. Harris's family is calling for a full review of events.
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner's office has already ruled in their own inquiry that there is no need for further investigation. Harris died of a sudden cardiac death, and his previous medical history was believed to account for this. Harris suffered from Type 2 diabetes and was overweight. He was said to have had heart problems in the past by family friend, Michael Langford. According to the office, they do not investigate standard of care issues.
"He had significant medical problems ... He had a medical history that could explain a sudden death," said Paul Kelhofer, the medical examiner's office director.
The study in which Harris participated is considered low risk. Participants were not given drugs or any other substances. They simply slept while monitored by trained medical professionals, who could observe signs of sleep apnea - a condition often associated with obesity, hypertension and heart failure. The study was performed on patients who were considered stable.
Renee "Sunshine" Lewis, Brandon Harris's mother, does not argue that her son did not have medical problems, or that his death was caused by the tests themselves. What she and the rest of her family dispute is that her son would be dead if he had received immediate, quality care. According to them, Harris had tried to get some attention before he died, and no one was paying attention to his distress.
John Lewis, Harris's uncle, claims that the hospital allowed him to watch the video footage of his nephew at the sleep center the night that he died. According to his account, Harris waved seven times over the course of forty minutes, attempting to attract the attention to his distressed state, and that in those forty minutes, no one responded. A nurse only responded when Harris removed his sensors, got up and went to the restroom. That nurse did not remain to investigate, however, and Harris returned to bed.
Only later did three nurses return to find him apparently in discomfort. Harris attempted to stand, but collapsed, finally eliciting a call for emergency response personnel.
"There is no reason he should have been neglected like that," Lewis said
"We never knew he'd be dead," Renee Lewis explained. "Brandon did not receive the appropriate care from [the sleep center]. Actually, in my opinion, he received no care at all."
Whatever the outcome of this disagreement, it is clear that Brandon Harris's family will not be satisfied until it receives the attention which it is due.
While Emory has issued a statement that Harris's death was the result of a sudden cardiac arrest, and that the hospital attended to this crisis properly, Harris's family tells a different story. They describe a situation where Brandon Harris failed to receive timely attention and care from the hospital staff, and claim that it was medical negligence which took his life. Harris's family is calling for a full review of events.
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner's office has already ruled in their own inquiry that there is no need for further investigation. Harris died of a sudden cardiac death, and his previous medical history was believed to account for this. Harris suffered from Type 2 diabetes and was overweight. He was said to have had heart problems in the past by family friend, Michael Langford. According to the office, they do not investigate standard of care issues."He had significant medical problems ... He had a medical history that could explain a sudden death," said Paul Kelhofer, the medical examiner's office director.
The study in which Harris participated is considered low risk. Participants were not given drugs or any other substances. They simply slept while monitored by trained medical professionals, who could observe signs of sleep apnea - a condition often associated with obesity, hypertension and heart failure. The study was performed on patients who were considered stable.
Renee "Sunshine" Lewis, Brandon Harris's mother, does not argue that her son did not have medical problems, or that his death was caused by the tests themselves. What she and the rest of her family dispute is that her son would be dead if he had received immediate, quality care. According to them, Harris had tried to get some attention before he died, and no one was paying attention to his distress.
John Lewis, Harris's uncle, claims that the hospital allowed him to watch the video footage of his nephew at the sleep center the night that he died. According to his account, Harris waved seven times over the course of forty minutes, attempting to attract the attention to his distressed state, and that in those forty minutes, no one responded. A nurse only responded when Harris removed his sensors, got up and went to the restroom. That nurse did not remain to investigate, however, and Harris returned to bed.
Only later did three nurses return to find him apparently in discomfort. Harris attempted to stand, but collapsed, finally eliciting a call for emergency response personnel.
"There is no reason he should have been neglected like that," Lewis said
"We never knew he'd be dead," Renee Lewis explained. "Brandon did not receive the appropriate care from [the sleep center]. Actually, in my opinion, he received no care at all."
Whatever the outcome of this disagreement, it is clear that Brandon Harris's family will not be satisfied until it receives the attention which it is due.
Labels: atlanta, emory university, Georgia, medical malpractice, medical malpractice attorney, medical malpractice lawyer
On Monday a 5-year-old boy fell 15 feet down an elevator shaft at the Kensington Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) station in Atlanta. The boy escaped serious injury. He was conscious and alert when firefighters rescued him using a wire basket.
DeKalb County Fire Captain Eric Jackson said, "Remarkably, consider the fall and what could have happened, the child was not hurt seriously."
The young boy was taken to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and released after evaluation. However, his parents took him back to the hospital on the same day after he told them he was having headaches. He was released again later in the evening.
According to Jackson, the child was on the second floor of the MARTA station and leaning again the elevator door "when the door somehow became disengaged or opened, and that's when the child fell.”
“He fell onto the top of the elevator car," reported Jackson
Jackson said that the rescue operation was challenging: "but we were basically able to use some ladders to get the firefighters down there, get the child secured, and bring him back up on a Stokes basket."
A Stokes basket is a metal wire basket used for rescue missions in confined spaces.
The incident happened around 9:00 a.m. on Monday morning. MARTA spokeswoman Cara Hodgson said that MARTA officials are investigating the accident.
CBS Atlanta News questioned MARTA officials about the accident. Tim Eason, the escalator and elevator manager at MARTA, said, "We know doors did swing in but at this point we don't know why.”
"When doors typically function, they slide from left to right. How would they push in?" asked a reporter?
"They slide side to side," said Eason, "and normally they shouldn't go in or out. It's a very unusual situation."
According to Eason, the elevator in question had been recently inspected by a maintenance contractor on January 4 and by a MARTA inspector on January 11. He said that other MARTA elevators and escalators have been checked and are safe.
However, the question still remains: What kind of malfunction occurred that allowed the weight of a five-year-old boy to cause an elevator door to swing in? If it turns out that the boy sustained injuries during the fall – for instance, if the headaches were a sign of a traumatic brain injury – then the boy’s family would likely have a good case against MARTA. Like all property owners, MARTA officials have the responsibility of making sure that the property is properly maintained and safe for visitors. Property owners have a legal obligation to alert visitors about known safety hazards.
Have you been injured at a place of business due to a safety hazard? If so, contact an experienced Atlanta premises liability attorney as soon as possible. Call MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule your free consultation.
DeKalb County Fire Captain Eric Jackson said, "Remarkably, consider the fall and what could have happened, the child was not hurt seriously."
The young boy was taken to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and released after evaluation. However, his parents took him back to the hospital on the same day after he told them he was having headaches. He was released again later in the evening.
According to Jackson, the child was on the second floor of the MARTA station and leaning again the elevator door "when the door somehow became disengaged or opened, and that's when the child fell.”
“He fell onto the top of the elevator car," reported Jackson
Jackson said that the rescue operation was challenging: "but we were basically able to use some ladders to get the firefighters down there, get the child secured, and bring him back up on a Stokes basket."
A Stokes basket is a metal wire basket used for rescue missions in confined spaces.
The incident happened around 9:00 a.m. on Monday morning. MARTA spokeswoman Cara Hodgson said that MARTA officials are investigating the accident.
CBS Atlanta News questioned MARTA officials about the accident. Tim Eason, the escalator and elevator manager at MARTA, said, "We know doors did swing in but at this point we don't know why.”
"When doors typically function, they slide from left to right. How would they push in?" asked a reporter?
"They slide side to side," said Eason, "and normally they shouldn't go in or out. It's a very unusual situation."
According to Eason, the elevator in question had been recently inspected by a maintenance contractor on January 4 and by a MARTA inspector on January 11. He said that other MARTA elevators and escalators have been checked and are safe.
However, the question still remains: What kind of malfunction occurred that allowed the weight of a five-year-old boy to cause an elevator door to swing in? If it turns out that the boy sustained injuries during the fall – for instance, if the headaches were a sign of a traumatic brain injury – then the boy’s family would likely have a good case against MARTA. Like all property owners, MARTA officials have the responsibility of making sure that the property is properly maintained and safe for visitors. Property owners have a legal obligation to alert visitors about known safety hazards.
Have you been injured at a place of business due to a safety hazard? If so, contact an experienced Atlanta premises liability attorney as soon as possible. Call MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule your free consultation.
Labels: atlanta, Atlanta injury lawyer, child safety, fall, MARTA, premises liability
I have written before about Atlanta's unfortunate function as a hub in the sexual exploitation of children, but it has recently come to my attention that our state of Georgia also has the dubious honor of being considered fifth ranked in terms of the number of devises used to transmit and receive child pornography. And law enforcement officers are often helpless to find more than a fraction of it.
But the official’s behind Operation Restore Hope have recently struck a huge blow in the continuing fight to protect children from exploitation in child pornography. On Tuesday of last week, federal, state and local law enforcement groups arrested 44 people and confiscated 279 computers in what is believed to be the largest sweep for child pornography ever in the nation.
“We maxed out our resources on this,” said the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Vernon Keenan.
For the last three months, agents have been orchestrating this strike by tracking known child pornography threads from their offices in Cleveland. Sweeps for targets began the morning of January 12.
Keenan described the images they have found as disturbing. In some of them, the victims are no older than infants. Some of them contain rape of young children - one painful example involved the rape of a four-year-old boy.
Not only the images, but the situations the officers find when they make arrests can be equally disturbing. In some cases, the officers have found children are part of the suspects' households. In one case, they found that a child in the house was also the one from the images which they had been pursuing online.
“[In] previous experiences, some of the offenders have children in the home and they have been manufacturing their own child pornography,” Keenan said. “The child pornography that they are pursuing is known child pornography -- certain files or certain images.”
Some of the warrants issued were the result of fears that children were still being exploited to produce pornography in the houses of the suspects. While this fear seems to be substantiated, no arrests have been made specifically for that at this time. The warrants issued were search warrants for the computers known to be trafficking in the "peer-to-peer" exchange of child pornography, and technicians are still examining those to determine the extent of the evidence in these cases. "Peer-to-peer" exchanges allow the exchange of documents - images and video - from one subscriber's hard drive to another's. In some cases, a subscriber does not even know the exchange has taken place.
Last week's sweep followed Operation Shattered Innocence from last March, when 27 people were arrested and over 100 computers seized.
“This time we’re looking for 89 different targets,” Keenan reported.
“We are so early in this operation, we do not know how many [child porn images] we’re going to find on people’s computers. But we know we found a lot of child pornography today.”
As readers and Georgia residents, we can only hope that Operation Restore Hope is able to turn the tide against the sexual exploitation of our children, at least to some small degree.
But the official’s behind Operation Restore Hope have recently struck a huge blow in the continuing fight to protect children from exploitation in child pornography. On Tuesday of last week, federal, state and local law enforcement groups arrested 44 people and confiscated 279 computers in what is believed to be the largest sweep for child pornography ever in the nation.“We maxed out our resources on this,” said the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Vernon Keenan.
For the last three months, agents have been orchestrating this strike by tracking known child pornography threads from their offices in Cleveland. Sweeps for targets began the morning of January 12.
Keenan described the images they have found as disturbing. In some of them, the victims are no older than infants. Some of them contain rape of young children - one painful example involved the rape of a four-year-old boy.
Not only the images, but the situations the officers find when they make arrests can be equally disturbing. In some cases, the officers have found children are part of the suspects' households. In one case, they found that a child in the house was also the one from the images which they had been pursuing online.
“[In] previous experiences, some of the offenders have children in the home and they have been manufacturing their own child pornography,” Keenan said. “The child pornography that they are pursuing is known child pornography -- certain files or certain images.”
Some of the warrants issued were the result of fears that children were still being exploited to produce pornography in the houses of the suspects. While this fear seems to be substantiated, no arrests have been made specifically for that at this time. The warrants issued were search warrants for the computers known to be trafficking in the "peer-to-peer" exchange of child pornography, and technicians are still examining those to determine the extent of the evidence in these cases. "Peer-to-peer" exchanges allow the exchange of documents - images and video - from one subscriber's hard drive to another's. In some cases, a subscriber does not even know the exchange has taken place.
Last week's sweep followed Operation Shattered Innocence from last March, when 27 people were arrested and over 100 computers seized.
“This time we’re looking for 89 different targets,” Keenan reported.
“We are so early in this operation, we do not know how many [child porn images] we’re going to find on people’s computers. But we know we found a lot of child pornography today.”
As readers and Georgia residents, we can only hope that Operation Restore Hope is able to turn the tide against the sexual exploitation of our children, at least to some small degree.
Labels: atlanta, child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, Georgia, sex offenders, sexual predator
As a personal injury attorney, I strive to stay abreast of current medical news. While perusing Medical News Today over the weekend, I came across an interesting article about crime in Atlanta.
According to a study carried out by Georgia State University Criminal Justice experts Timothy Brezina and Volkan Topalli and economist Erdal Tekin, Atlanta crime may be due to anticipation of an early death.
"It turns out that if you boil it all down, the more you think you are going to die young, the more likely it is that you are going to engage in criminality and violence," Topalli explained. "This is the opposite of what most people think, because most people think that if you think you're going to die soon you become depressed and you wouldn't commit crimes."
The criminal justice study, published in the December issue of the journal Criminology, examined potential causes of youth crime in Atlanta. The researchers interviewed young criminals in Atlanta and asked about their anticipation of future injury and early death.
"Many had been shot or stabbed and bore visible scars of physical trauma," said Brezina said. "They also expressed what criminologists refer to as a ‘coercive’ worldview. In their eyes, they occupy a dog-eat-dog world where it is acceptable, if not necessary, to use force to intimidate others and to prevent victimization."
This attitude is captured in the name of the study: “Might not be a tomorrow.”
When young people believe that they don’t have much of a future, the researchers found, then they feel like they don’t have much to lose by committing crimes.
"They live in neighborhoods that are kind of like war zones," Topalli explained. "They grew up hearing gun shots, seeing people die and hearing ambulances and police cars. Just about every young person we talked to had seen a dead body, and either has fired a weapon or has been fired upon in some context. Over 70 percent of them have been victimized themselves, which is far greater than the larger population. The majority of them won't die early, but the illusion is that you will and it's reinforced by the culture."
Georgia State University has plans to establish a Center for Crime and Violence Prevention Policy to address violence and crime in Atlanta. Conventional approaches to crime fighting may not work for at-risk youth who feel that there might not be a tomorrow.
"It seems unlikely that threats of harsher criminal justice penalties will deter these fearless offenders. They assume life is short anyway and willingly accept the risks associated with a criminal lifestyle. Even death," said Brezina. "An alternative approach is to confront the pervasive violence and other social ills that so many inner-city children confront in their daily lives - conditions that deflate hope and breed crime in the first place."
I look forward to seeing more studies from the criminology experts at Georgia State University, and I applaud the establishment of the Center for Crime and Violence Prevention Policy in Atlanta.
If you’ve been inured by a violent crime in Atlanta, contact an Atlanta violent crime victim lawyer immediately. You may be entitled to compensation. Contact MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule a free consultation.
According to a study carried out by Georgia State University Criminal Justice experts Timothy Brezina and Volkan Topalli and economist Erdal Tekin, Atlanta crime may be due to anticipation of an early death.
"It turns out that if you boil it all down, the more you think you are going to die young, the more likely it is that you are going to engage in criminality and violence," Topalli explained. "This is the opposite of what most people think, because most people think that if you think you're going to die soon you become depressed and you wouldn't commit crimes."
The criminal justice study, published in the December issue of the journal Criminology, examined potential causes of youth crime in Atlanta. The researchers interviewed young criminals in Atlanta and asked about their anticipation of future injury and early death.
"Many had been shot or stabbed and bore visible scars of physical trauma," said Brezina said. "They also expressed what criminologists refer to as a ‘coercive’ worldview. In their eyes, they occupy a dog-eat-dog world where it is acceptable, if not necessary, to use force to intimidate others and to prevent victimization."
This attitude is captured in the name of the study: “Might not be a tomorrow.”
When young people believe that they don’t have much of a future, the researchers found, then they feel like they don’t have much to lose by committing crimes.
"They live in neighborhoods that are kind of like war zones," Topalli explained. "They grew up hearing gun shots, seeing people die and hearing ambulances and police cars. Just about every young person we talked to had seen a dead body, and either has fired a weapon or has been fired upon in some context. Over 70 percent of them have been victimized themselves, which is far greater than the larger population. The majority of them won't die early, but the illusion is that you will and it's reinforced by the culture."
Georgia State University has plans to establish a Center for Crime and Violence Prevention Policy to address violence and crime in Atlanta. Conventional approaches to crime fighting may not work for at-risk youth who feel that there might not be a tomorrow.
"It seems unlikely that threats of harsher criminal justice penalties will deter these fearless offenders. They assume life is short anyway and willingly accept the risks associated with a criminal lifestyle. Even death," said Brezina. "An alternative approach is to confront the pervasive violence and other social ills that so many inner-city children confront in their daily lives - conditions that deflate hope and breed crime in the first place."
I look forward to seeing more studies from the criminology experts at Georgia State University, and I applaud the establishment of the Center for Crime and Violence Prevention Policy in Atlanta.
If you’ve been inured by a violent crime in Atlanta, contact an Atlanta violent crime victim lawyer immediately. You may be entitled to compensation. Contact MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule a free consultation.
Labels: atlanta, violent crime victim
Five year old Camden Hiers of Roswell was a happy, engaged boy in the days before his death, according to observers.
Another family, the Gandys, were on vacation in Florida when they met the victim and his grandparents, Marianne and Heinz Bordt. The Bordts were German nationals in their seventies, and seemed to have taken their grandson to Florida for an innocent vacation at the beach. The Gandys were staying in the downstairs condo at the same address and had the occasion to get to know Camden a little before they left.
"He just gravitated to both of my sons and to my husband," Christy Gandy said. "He was so sweet, and just the cutest little boy.
Gandy described Camden's grandparents as friendly, though their English was not very good. Camden - who spoke both English and German - was the one who would really stand out in Gandy's memory. First because the little boy had endeared himself to her, and because he had spent the week playing with her own sons, eight and twelve; Gandy described the three boys throwing around the football and building forts in the sand. But the reason Camden will continue to stand out in Gandy's memory is because she later learned that the day after her family had checked out of the condo, Marianne Bordt intentionally drowned Camden in the bathtub.
"We didn't suspect anything odd," Gandy said. "They were very friendly."
Gandy has described the event as devastating for her family. The vital little boy they had played with days before had been killed, his grandmother arrested for the crime.
Also devastated by the news were Camden's parents, David and Karin Hiers. The couple had divorced in 2006, and shared custody of their son. It was this fact which Marianne Bordt claimed led her to kill her grandson. David Hiers drove to Florida to speak with police after his son's death, and has since returned to Georgia.
"He's extremely overwhelmed with grief," Alpharetta attorney Thomas Salata said.
Salata called both Hiers "wonderful parents."
The killer's husband returned from the store that Monday to find her waiting for him. According to an affidavit from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, she told him that she had killed their grandson because she did not want him to grow up in a broken home. The police have said that Bordt also failed an attempt to kill herself in the ocean following the murder.
Bordt has been denied bond, and will remain in jail. She will be assigned a public defender.
The police found that the Bordts had been living with their daughter, Karen Hiers, and Camden in the Hiers' Roswell home, at least temporarily. Their most recent address was shared with the family. Despite this, neighbors say they did not know them at all. They described the family as keeping to themselves.
While this murder has touched many lives for the worse, Christy Gandy does not entirely regret meeting Camden.
"We feel like we gave him a lot of joy and happiness his last few days," Gandy said. "He was having a good time."
Another family, the Gandys, were on vacation in Florida when they met the victim and his grandparents, Marianne and Heinz Bordt. The Bordts were German nationals in their seventies, and seemed to have taken their grandson to Florida for an innocent vacation at the beach. The Gandys were staying in the downstairs condo at the same address and had the occasion to get to know Camden a little before they left.
"He just gravitated to both of my sons and to my husband," Christy Gandy said. "He was so sweet, and just the cutest little boy.
Gandy described Camden's grandparents as friendly, though their English was not very good. Camden - who spoke both English and German - was the one who would really stand out in Gandy's memory. First because the little boy had endeared himself to her, and because he had spent the week playing with her own sons, eight and twelve; Gandy described the three boys throwing around the football and building forts in the sand. But the reason Camden will continue to stand out in Gandy's memory is because she later learned that the day after her family had checked out of the condo, Marianne Bordt intentionally drowned Camden in the bathtub.
"We didn't suspect anything odd," Gandy said. "They were very friendly."
Gandy has described the event as devastating for her family. The vital little boy they had played with days before had been killed, his grandmother arrested for the crime.
Also devastated by the news were Camden's parents, David and Karin Hiers. The couple had divorced in 2006, and shared custody of their son. It was this fact which Marianne Bordt claimed led her to kill her grandson. David Hiers drove to Florida to speak with police after his son's death, and has since returned to Georgia.
"He's extremely overwhelmed with grief," Alpharetta attorney Thomas Salata said.
Salata called both Hiers "wonderful parents."
The killer's husband returned from the store that Monday to find her waiting for him. According to an affidavit from the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, she told him that she had killed their grandson because she did not want him to grow up in a broken home. The police have said that Bordt also failed an attempt to kill herself in the ocean following the murder.
Bordt has been denied bond, and will remain in jail. She will be assigned a public defender.
The police found that the Bordts had been living with their daughter, Karen Hiers, and Camden in the Hiers' Roswell home, at least temporarily. Their most recent address was shared with the family. Despite this, neighbors say they did not know them at all. They described the family as keeping to themselves.
While this murder has touched many lives for the worse, Christy Gandy does not entirely regret meeting Camden.
"We feel like we gave him a lot of joy and happiness his last few days," Gandy said. "He was having a good time."
Labels: atlanta, child murder, child safety, Georgia
I'm proud to have been quoted in yesterday's AJC, though I hope by the year 2020 we will no longer be reading stories titled "A rather dismal economic decade." I was asked to talk about the recent financial storm, and I offered the soundest advice I know for people in this time of financial predicament.
The full story can be found in the Business Section of the Sunday, January 3, 2009 issue of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A portion of the article is reprinted here:
The full story can be found in the Business Section of the Sunday, January 3, 2009 issue of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A portion of the article is reprinted here:
"Many people weren't seduced by the borrowing and debt that was the signature of this decade. They saved instead of overspending. They didn't leap into questionable mortgages or refinance themselves to the hilt. When the storm hit, their footing was good.
Atlanta personal injury attorney Michael Neff counts himself in that number. Neff, 41, a husband and father of two children, managed to expand his practice over the past decade, taking on a two-person staff and a second attorney.
Personal financial discipline is part of what carried him through, he said. His fees, earned only when cases are completed, arrive sporadically, so he follows a rigorous plan of saving and reducing debt. His best move, he said, was buying his first home near Chastain Park in Buckhead, a choice that squeezed him financially at the time. But his property has more than held its value amid the real estate upheaval, hesays; he's now building a new home on the same spot.
'The best advice I ever got was to have six months of living expenses on hand. That's a cushion a lot of folks did not develop for themselves [this past decade]. They got overleveraged and could not weather the storm. It can be tough to do, but money in the bank changes everything.'"
Labels: atlanta, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia, michael neff
In many ways the holidays bring out the best in people. It is a time for giving and sharing, for visiting with family and friends, and for remembering what is most important to us.
In other ways, they bring out the worst in people: stress, overindulgence, airing of family grievances, and something else which might really ruin a holiday – home burglary.
No one is immune, warns Sergeant Archie Ezell with the Atlanta police gang unit. In fact, the sergeant expects theft to be worse danger this year than in the past.
"An APD employee went home […] and found it broken into," Ezell said. "Not only did they steal the presents under the tree, they stole the ornaments off of the tree and the food from the refrigerator. It dawned on me then that the economy has gotten really bad and people are out of work and we can expect an increase in thefts."
Enzell explains that a lot of homeowners make themselves targets by advertising what is waiting for thieves inside. Sometimes they do this by leaving the boxes for their new flat screen TV visible on the curb with the trash; other times they do it by opening their windows to display their extravagantly decorated tree, and all the gifts underneath along with it.
"One of my neighbors bought a bunch of expensive audio equipment and he had all the boxes sitting by the curb instead of cutting them up and putting them in a trash bag," Ezell said. "There are people who ride around to see what you got. You are just setting yourself up to be a victim."
Volkan Topalli, gang expert and professor at Georgia State University, interviews gang members as part of his job. According to him, crime picks up around holidays for the same reason it picks up around paydays. Criminals follow the economy.
"They are aware of economic patterns," he said. "They know when the welfare checks come, and that is a day when people will have cash in their pocket; and they know Friday and Saturday are good days to rob people because they get paid; and they know people are brand-new-item-heavy around Christmastime and they’re storing them in their homes.”
The National Crime Prevention Council offers a number of easy, common sense tips for avoiding theft this holiday season and all year.
• When shopping, park in well lit areas, avoid over burdening yourself with packages, and attempt to keep purchases out of sight by hiding them in the trunk. If possible, shop with a friend.
• Make sure to lock your home’s doors and windows – more than 60 percent of burglaries do not involve forced entry.
• Don’t leave gifts where they can be seen from outside.
• Stop mail and newspaper delivery while you travel, to avoid having it pile up and tell potential thieves that you aren’t home.
• Also while traveling, be careful in motels. Use main entrances to return to your room, and don’t answer the door without verifying who it is first. Check with the front desk if someone claims to be an employee.
• Inventory valuables, especially new ones. Photograph, video tape, and secure serial numbers where possible.
Just follow a few simple safety precautions can assure that this holiday season won’t be one that you remember for all the wrong reasons.
From all of us at the Law Offices of Michael Lawson Neff, have a safe, happy and healthy holiday!
In other ways, they bring out the worst in people: stress, overindulgence, airing of family grievances, and something else which might really ruin a holiday – home burglary.
No one is immune, warns Sergeant Archie Ezell with the Atlanta police gang unit. In fact, the sergeant expects theft to be worse danger this year than in the past."An APD employee went home […] and found it broken into," Ezell said. "Not only did they steal the presents under the tree, they stole the ornaments off of the tree and the food from the refrigerator. It dawned on me then that the economy has gotten really bad and people are out of work and we can expect an increase in thefts."
Enzell explains that a lot of homeowners make themselves targets by advertising what is waiting for thieves inside. Sometimes they do this by leaving the boxes for their new flat screen TV visible on the curb with the trash; other times they do it by opening their windows to display their extravagantly decorated tree, and all the gifts underneath along with it.
"One of my neighbors bought a bunch of expensive audio equipment and he had all the boxes sitting by the curb instead of cutting them up and putting them in a trash bag," Ezell said. "There are people who ride around to see what you got. You are just setting yourself up to be a victim."
Volkan Topalli, gang expert and professor at Georgia State University, interviews gang members as part of his job. According to him, crime picks up around holidays for the same reason it picks up around paydays. Criminals follow the economy.
"They are aware of economic patterns," he said. "They know when the welfare checks come, and that is a day when people will have cash in their pocket; and they know Friday and Saturday are good days to rob people because they get paid; and they know people are brand-new-item-heavy around Christmastime and they’re storing them in their homes.”
The National Crime Prevention Council offers a number of easy, common sense tips for avoiding theft this holiday season and all year.
• When shopping, park in well lit areas, avoid over burdening yourself with packages, and attempt to keep purchases out of sight by hiding them in the trunk. If possible, shop with a friend.
• Make sure to lock your home’s doors and windows – more than 60 percent of burglaries do not involve forced entry.
• Don’t leave gifts where they can be seen from outside.
• Stop mail and newspaper delivery while you travel, to avoid having it pile up and tell potential thieves that you aren’t home.
• Also while traveling, be careful in motels. Use main entrances to return to your room, and don’t answer the door without verifying who it is first. Check with the front desk if someone claims to be an employee.
• Inventory valuables, especially new ones. Photograph, video tape, and secure serial numbers where possible.
Just follow a few simple safety precautions can assure that this holiday season won’t be one that you remember for all the wrong reasons.
From all of us at the Law Offices of Michael Lawson Neff, have a safe, happy and healthy holiday!
Labels: atlanta, holiday safety
Miguel Padilla, thirty-two, was finally convicted December 10 for the 2005 death of his two year old daughter.
Over four years after the September 23, 2005 death of his daughter, Artearia Love as the result of blunt force trauma, this Atlanta man has been sentenced to life in prison.
The little girl’s mother had left Artearia with Padilla while she went to work that day. Around three hours after she left, Padilla left the house and approached a neighbor, who he told that Artearia had blood in her diaper, and that she was holding her stomach.
Padilla failed to seek help immediately because he feared reporting the injuries would lead to his arrest on unrelated charges.
The neighbor urged Padilla to call 9-1-1, but court officials report that he hesitated. Padilla had an outstanding warrant for parole violation. At the time, he was on parole for burglary.
After his conversation with the neighbor, Padilla returned home to find his daughter’s body lying cold in her own vomit.
In his testimony, the Fulton County Medical examiner explained how the girl had suffered trauma from an impact to her stomach, with force comparable to that of an automobile accident. As a result of her injuries, the two year old girl bled to death.
Childhood death due to neglect or parental abuse remains a serious problem in our country, despite the best efforts of the child protection system and the general sentiment of our society. While deaths due to accidents and illness tend to be closely monitored and recorded, in cases of abuse or maltreatment, the perpetrators – most likely the victims parents or some other trusted guardian – are unlikely to be forthcoming.
Most data on child abuse fatalities come from state level child welfare agencies, and while these agencies may draw on supplementary resources for additional information, most experts still believe that child abuse and neglect fatalities are under reported in this country.
The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System estimated 1,760 children died in 2007 as a result of maltreatment. They also report a chilling trend: it appears that the number of child fatalities has been gradually increasing over the last five years.
While there are complicating factors in this report, such as improved data collection and variations among the systems that collect this information, these findings still point to the unfortunate fact that for an estimated 2.35 children out of every 100,000, the people who ought to be supporting and protecting them are in fact, ending their lives.
The vast majority of victims in these cases are children under the age of three, and infants under one year old are especially vulnerable, making up an estimated 42.2 percent of child abuse fatalities.
In 69.9 percent of cases, one or both of the victim’s parents were responsible for the child’s death.
For more information about child abuse and fatalities, and particularly how they could be prevented, visit Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect. And if you ever even suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, report it. Isn’t it better to be wrong and embarrassed than to be right and remain silent while a child is abused? As adults, we are responsible for the welfare of the littlest ones among us. Don’t neglect an at-risk child by failing to provide all the help you can.
Over four years after the September 23, 2005 death of his daughter, Artearia Love as the result of blunt force trauma, this Atlanta man has been sentenced to life in prison.
The little girl’s mother had left Artearia with Padilla while she went to work that day. Around three hours after she left, Padilla left the house and approached a neighbor, who he told that Artearia had blood in her diaper, and that she was holding her stomach.
Padilla failed to seek help immediately because he feared reporting the injuries would lead to his arrest on unrelated charges.
The neighbor urged Padilla to call 9-1-1, but court officials report that he hesitated. Padilla had an outstanding warrant for parole violation. At the time, he was on parole for burglary.After his conversation with the neighbor, Padilla returned home to find his daughter’s body lying cold in her own vomit.
In his testimony, the Fulton County Medical examiner explained how the girl had suffered trauma from an impact to her stomach, with force comparable to that of an automobile accident. As a result of her injuries, the two year old girl bled to death.
Childhood death due to neglect or parental abuse remains a serious problem in our country, despite the best efforts of the child protection system and the general sentiment of our society. While deaths due to accidents and illness tend to be closely monitored and recorded, in cases of abuse or maltreatment, the perpetrators – most likely the victims parents or some other trusted guardian – are unlikely to be forthcoming.
Most data on child abuse fatalities come from state level child welfare agencies, and while these agencies may draw on supplementary resources for additional information, most experts still believe that child abuse and neglect fatalities are under reported in this country.
The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System estimated 1,760 children died in 2007 as a result of maltreatment. They also report a chilling trend: it appears that the number of child fatalities has been gradually increasing over the last five years.
While there are complicating factors in this report, such as improved data collection and variations among the systems that collect this information, these findings still point to the unfortunate fact that for an estimated 2.35 children out of every 100,000, the people who ought to be supporting and protecting them are in fact, ending their lives.
The vast majority of victims in these cases are children under the age of three, and infants under one year old are especially vulnerable, making up an estimated 42.2 percent of child abuse fatalities.
In 69.9 percent of cases, one or both of the victim’s parents were responsible for the child’s death.
For more information about child abuse and fatalities, and particularly how they could be prevented, visit Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect. And if you ever even suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, report it. Isn’t it better to be wrong and embarrassed than to be right and remain silent while a child is abused? As adults, we are responsible for the welfare of the littlest ones among us. Don’t neglect an at-risk child by failing to provide all the help you can.
Labels: atlanta, child abuse
A Marietta nurse anesthetist has been arrested for the second time in two weeks. The first arrest was for eavesdropping and unlawful surveillance. This second arrest, which took place on Monday, November 22, added child molestation and sodomy to his list of crimes when a juvenile appeared among his alleged victims.
Paul Patrick Serdula, age forty-seven, is the nurse in question, and the investigation into his alleged crimes is still on-going. Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce has said that at the moment, the number of victims is in the low double digits, but “we expect as many as 100."
Detectives have talked to a number of victims, and people who believe they may have been victims, he said.
With these new charges, Pierce said that Serdula will most likely be kept in jail without bond. The new charges filed against Serdula include aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery alleged to have occurred July 29, and a charge of aggravated sodomy alleged to have occurred September 16.
The initial charges were only three instances of unlawful surveillance in a dental office where Serdula was employed.
However Serdula, as a contracted nurse anesthetist, did not work only in one dentist or medical office. He may have worked for a number of separate medical establishments. Police are still trying to identify where he may have worked.
Police are also trying to identify locations and victims found on video recordings found during a search of Serdula’s home. The search uncovered electronic recording devices and untold hours of video.
"We are looking at tapes not only from the incident that occurred at the dental office, but also other incidents that are recorded that we are trying to find the location of that criminal activity as well as identify the victims," Sgt. Pierce said.
The original investigation opened when a woman spotted a suspicious recording device in the bathroom at her dentist’s office. The woman immediately called 911.
Paul Patrick Serdula received his Georgia nursing license December 16, 1997, and has been practicing since then. Prior to that, he held a nursing license in the state of Florida.
Anyone who suspects they may have been a victim of Serdula is advised to first contact their physician or dentist rather than the police and ask as to whether or not Serdula was their anesthetist. If in fact he was, then they should contact the police to further the investigation.
This incident drives home very clearly the vulnerable position we all put ourselves in, not only with doctors, but with other medical professionals as well. We must trust them for the benefit of our own health and well being, and most times their intentions are good, however when a predator finds access into the medical establishment, his access to victims might be frighteningly easy.
To imagine that such a person might feasibly be able to victimize a hundred or more patients, minors among them, is nothing less than horrifying.
Paul Patrick Serdula, age forty-seven, is the nurse in question, and the investigation into his alleged crimes is still on-going. Cobb County police Sgt. Dana Pierce has said that at the moment, the number of victims is in the low double digits, but “we expect as many as 100."
Detectives have talked to a number of victims, and people who believe they may have been victims, he said.
With these new charges, Pierce said that Serdula will most likely be kept in jail without bond. The new charges filed against Serdula include aggravated child molestation and aggravated sexual battery alleged to have occurred July 29, and a charge of aggravated sodomy alleged to have occurred September 16.
The initial charges were only three instances of unlawful surveillance in a dental office where Serdula was employed.
However Serdula, as a contracted nurse anesthetist, did not work only in one dentist or medical office. He may have worked for a number of separate medical establishments. Police are still trying to identify where he may have worked.
Police are also trying to identify locations and victims found on video recordings found during a search of Serdula’s home. The search uncovered electronic recording devices and untold hours of video.
"We are looking at tapes not only from the incident that occurred at the dental office, but also other incidents that are recorded that we are trying to find the location of that criminal activity as well as identify the victims," Sgt. Pierce said.
The original investigation opened when a woman spotted a suspicious recording device in the bathroom at her dentist’s office. The woman immediately called 911.
Paul Patrick Serdula received his Georgia nursing license December 16, 1997, and has been practicing since then. Prior to that, he held a nursing license in the state of Florida.
Anyone who suspects they may have been a victim of Serdula is advised to first contact their physician or dentist rather than the police and ask as to whether or not Serdula was their anesthetist. If in fact he was, then they should contact the police to further the investigation.
This incident drives home very clearly the vulnerable position we all put ourselves in, not only with doctors, but with other medical professionals as well. We must trust them for the benefit of our own health and well being, and most times their intentions are good, however when a predator finds access into the medical establishment, his access to victims might be frighteningly easy.
To imagine that such a person might feasibly be able to victimize a hundred or more patients, minors among them, is nothing less than horrifying.
Labels: atlanta, Georgia, medical malpractice
On May 5th of this year, at around 2:45 in the afternoon, Jackie Gordon called 911 to report a middle aged man in a yellow jump suit chasing children and exposing himself in Phoenix Park, near Turner Field. She was told that the police were on there way.
Almost an hour later, the police had still not arrived on the scene.
This is because at the same time, there was a fight between two groups of girls on McDaniel Street, and off Cleveland Avenue, a six year old boy was missing after wandering away from his mother at a bus stop. There was also illegal drug activity reported on Boulevard, and a traffic accident on Metropolitan Parkway. With so many calls, the sad fact became immediately apparent: there were not enough police to answer all of the emergency calls at that time.
The 911 operator sent the electronic message to a dispatcher at the Atlanta Police Department promptly after taking Gordon’s information, and there the dispatcher held the call until a unit was available to respond. It took fifty-six minutes and five seconds for the police to respond to a report of a man demanding sex from children.
Nearly an hour after Jackie Gordon’s initial call, and two more calls to 911 later – each met with the same assurances that someone would be coming – an officer finally arrived at Phoenix Park. Gordon pointed out the flasher, who had been “cussing out” her and the children for almost an hour, and he was at last arrested.
This turn of events is not uncommon for the Atlanta Police Department. In fact, they received eighteen calls around the same time as Gordon’s, and the average hold time for those calls was thirty-seven minutes.
In 18 percent of calls between January and July, over 24,000 calls tallied, police dispatchers were unable to assign units to calls forward by 911 within what the department defines as an acceptable response time. That is nearly one in five calls which dispatchers are forced to keep on hold an unacceptably long period of time. Often, by the time police arrive on the scene, the offenders are gone. Sometimes, the victims, too.
Even in the highest priority calls, officers arrive within five minutes only 9 percent of the time.
This situation is the result of a larger problem within the police department, and the city at large. Despite election year promises to the contrary, many police officers complain of never receiving raises, and until the city raised taxes, officers were furloughed half a day each week to keep costs down. This has led to the Atlanta police officers resigning at a rate almost half the national average. Well short of the much hoped for 2,000 member police force, Atlanta’s left with only 1,600 officers. Of that 1,600, only 40 percent are assigned to routine patrol.
“If a person is shot, we’re going to be there right away,” said Police Chief Richard Pennington. “But if your flower pot is stolen off your front porch, we’re not going right away. The police will get there. But because of the backlog and because of not having available resources on the street, it’s going to take a while.”
One has to wonder where protecting children from flashers demanding sex ranks among police priorities.
Almost an hour later, the police had still not arrived on the scene.
This is because at the same time, there was a fight between two groups of girls on McDaniel Street, and off Cleveland Avenue, a six year old boy was missing after wandering away from his mother at a bus stop. There was also illegal drug activity reported on Boulevard, and a traffic accident on Metropolitan Parkway. With so many calls, the sad fact became immediately apparent: there were not enough police to answer all of the emergency calls at that time.
The 911 operator sent the electronic message to a dispatcher at the Atlanta Police Department promptly after taking Gordon’s information, and there the dispatcher held the call until a unit was available to respond. It took fifty-six minutes and five seconds for the police to respond to a report of a man demanding sex from children.
Nearly an hour after Jackie Gordon’s initial call, and two more calls to 911 later – each met with the same assurances that someone would be coming – an officer finally arrived at Phoenix Park. Gordon pointed out the flasher, who had been “cussing out” her and the children for almost an hour, and he was at last arrested.
This turn of events is not uncommon for the Atlanta Police Department. In fact, they received eighteen calls around the same time as Gordon’s, and the average hold time for those calls was thirty-seven minutes.
In 18 percent of calls between January and July, over 24,000 calls tallied, police dispatchers were unable to assign units to calls forward by 911 within what the department defines as an acceptable response time. That is nearly one in five calls which dispatchers are forced to keep on hold an unacceptably long period of time. Often, by the time police arrive on the scene, the offenders are gone. Sometimes, the victims, too.
Even in the highest priority calls, officers arrive within five minutes only 9 percent of the time.
This situation is the result of a larger problem within the police department, and the city at large. Despite election year promises to the contrary, many police officers complain of never receiving raises, and until the city raised taxes, officers were furloughed half a day each week to keep costs down. This has led to the Atlanta police officers resigning at a rate almost half the national average. Well short of the much hoped for 2,000 member police force, Atlanta’s left with only 1,600 officers. Of that 1,600, only 40 percent are assigned to routine patrol.
“If a person is shot, we’re going to be there right away,” said Police Chief Richard Pennington. “But if your flower pot is stolen off your front porch, we’re not going right away. The police will get there. But because of the backlog and because of not having available resources on the street, it’s going to take a while.”
One has to wonder where protecting children from flashers demanding sex ranks among police priorities.
Labels: atlanta, child safety, Georgia
In a recent study, Forbes magazine rated the Atlanta metropolitan area as the most toxic metropolitan area in the country. It beat Detroit, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, which all followed Atlanta closely in the ranking, for the top spot on Forbes' list.
Environmental activists lay the blame on weak environmental regulations.
Beyond the image of belching smokestacks, all of these most toxic cities suffer from a host of less obvious environmental threats. Toxins can leech into the soil and ground water from old chemical spills or defunct steel mills. More toxins may leak or be expelled invisibly from industrial complexes, either accidentally or as a matter of business practice. These toxins also often find their way into the water supply.
"We struggle to have strong environmental leadership. For a lot of the chemicals people reported dumping, there are alternatives we should be helping them switch to,” said Jenette Gayer, Environment Georgia policy advocate, in an interview with Forbes.
In this case, high population density may prove to be a blessing in disguise. New York, largest city in the country, did not make the top twenty on Forbes’ list. Unlike sprawling metropolitan centers like Atlanta or Los Angeles, New York has highly efficient systems in place to serve and protect its large, tightly packed population. The subway system, for example, which moves people in high volume with relatively little pollution compared to areas which rely primarily on cars for commuting.
Other cities, like Portland Ore, have been able to avoid the worst of air pollution problems through conscious efforts on the part of city planners. The city has been working for decades to curb urban sprawl, and yet still ranked higher than half the cities surveyed as a result of past development and uncontrolled growth. These current policies are a response to that era.
Once a city has become polluted to such toxic levels, it is neither easy nor cheap to clean up the area and introduce new, greener alternatives to the systems already in place.
Forbes also cited the city’s outlying suburbs as partly to blame for its high toxicity. Suburban cities such as Sandy Springs and Marietta may be major contributors, since both towns contain chemical factories, cement factories, and metal coaters. Environmental change will have to extend to these areas as well, rather than focusing on Atlanta alone.
The Forbes study looked at the nations forty largest metropolitan areas, and according to the magazine, rankings were calculated based on a number of statistics. They counted the number of facilities releasing toxins into the air, the total pounds of certain chemicals released into the environment, the number of days a year where air pollution levels rose above healthy levels, and the number of federally designated clean up sites within the area.
Forbes said of Atlanta, “you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene--and 21,000 tons of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country.”
Environmental activists lay the blame on weak environmental regulations.
Beyond the image of belching smokestacks, all of these most toxic cities suffer from a host of less obvious environmental threats. Toxins can leech into the soil and ground water from old chemical spills or defunct steel mills. More toxins may leak or be expelled invisibly from industrial complexes, either accidentally or as a matter of business practice. These toxins also often find their way into the water supply.
"We struggle to have strong environmental leadership. For a lot of the chemicals people reported dumping, there are alternatives we should be helping them switch to,” said Jenette Gayer, Environment Georgia policy advocate, in an interview with Forbes.
In this case, high population density may prove to be a blessing in disguise. New York, largest city in the country, did not make the top twenty on Forbes’ list. Unlike sprawling metropolitan centers like Atlanta or Los Angeles, New York has highly efficient systems in place to serve and protect its large, tightly packed population. The subway system, for example, which moves people in high volume with relatively little pollution compared to areas which rely primarily on cars for commuting.
Other cities, like Portland Ore, have been able to avoid the worst of air pollution problems through conscious efforts on the part of city planners. The city has been working for decades to curb urban sprawl, and yet still ranked higher than half the cities surveyed as a result of past development and uncontrolled growth. These current policies are a response to that era.
Once a city has become polluted to such toxic levels, it is neither easy nor cheap to clean up the area and introduce new, greener alternatives to the systems already in place.
Forbes also cited the city’s outlying suburbs as partly to blame for its high toxicity. Suburban cities such as Sandy Springs and Marietta may be major contributors, since both towns contain chemical factories, cement factories, and metal coaters. Environmental change will have to extend to these areas as well, rather than focusing on Atlanta alone.
The Forbes study looked at the nations forty largest metropolitan areas, and according to the magazine, rankings were calculated based on a number of statistics. They counted the number of facilities releasing toxins into the air, the total pounds of certain chemicals released into the environment, the number of days a year where air pollution levels rose above healthy levels, and the number of federally designated clean up sites within the area.
Forbes said of Atlanta, “you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene--and 21,000 tons of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country.”
St. Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta is the first hospital in the state to present Georgians with a new option in noninvasive, incision-free brain surgery. The oldest hospital in the city, St. Joseph’s was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1880 and now offers four hundred and ten beds to acute patient care. Now it confirms its reputation as one of the leading referral specialty hospitals in the Southeast as it installs its new Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion.
The Gamma Knife is a device which allows physicians to isolate and destroy both benign and malignant brain tumors, as well as helping to treat certain neurological conditions such as pain and movement disorders, which would be unreachable through traditional surgery. They achieve this through the use of an array of focused gamma radiation which when combined with advanced brain imaging techniques, focuses precisely on abnormal structures in the brain and destroys the targeted area while leaving the surrounding areas of the brain largely unharmed. It accomplishes this in one session, with one dose of radiation. This ability makes it one of the most advanced treatment options available in the treatment of brain tumors.
It is considered a “gentler alternative to traditional brain surgery” according to hospital officials. Unlike traditional brain surgery, there is no need for incisions, and it is not necessary to risk damage to other areas because the individual rays are too weak on their own to harm tissue, instead only destroying cells where they converge under the guidance of precise computer generated imaging. It removes the necessity that a surgeon be able to physically reach the problem.
The Atlanta hospital launched its radio surgery program in 2004. Since then the specialists there have treated over six hundred patients. It is one of only four radio surgery programs in the state of Georgia to offer this alternative to traditional surgery, and the first to feature this new technology.
The staff at St. Joseph’s is understandably excited by the new possibilities that this offers them in the care and treatment of their patients. The upgrade grants them the potential to treat a growing range of problems.
“We are thrilled to be the first in Georgia to offer this treatment option for our patients,” said the manager of the Gamma Knife program at St. Joseph’s, Rebecca Heitkam. “With the upgrade to Perfexion, we will be able to reach and treat lesions that previously were unattainable.”
The practice of Gamma Knife radio surgery is not new, dating back to 1967 when the technique was invented by Lars Leksell in Stockholm, Sweden. However, each new generation of technology allows for greater and greater results. That first unit was suitable only for the functional brain surgery, for use treating pain, movement and certain behavioral disorders. This new Gamma Knife Perfexion unit allows doctors to reach new levels of effectiveness and efficiency in quickly identifying, scheduling and treating an increasingly wider range of diseases and troubling abnormalities which could not be managed or removed with other strategies. I share in Joseph’s excitement at having the new unit in Atlanta.
The Gamma Knife is a device which allows physicians to isolate and destroy both benign and malignant brain tumors, as well as helping to treat certain neurological conditions such as pain and movement disorders, which would be unreachable through traditional surgery. They achieve this through the use of an array of focused gamma radiation which when combined with advanced brain imaging techniques, focuses precisely on abnormal structures in the brain and destroys the targeted area while leaving the surrounding areas of the brain largely unharmed. It accomplishes this in one session, with one dose of radiation. This ability makes it one of the most advanced treatment options available in the treatment of brain tumors.
It is considered a “gentler alternative to traditional brain surgery” according to hospital officials. Unlike traditional brain surgery, there is no need for incisions, and it is not necessary to risk damage to other areas because the individual rays are too weak on their own to harm tissue, instead only destroying cells where they converge under the guidance of precise computer generated imaging. It removes the necessity that a surgeon be able to physically reach the problem.
The Atlanta hospital launched its radio surgery program in 2004. Since then the specialists there have treated over six hundred patients. It is one of only four radio surgery programs in the state of Georgia to offer this alternative to traditional surgery, and the first to feature this new technology.
The staff at St. Joseph’s is understandably excited by the new possibilities that this offers them in the care and treatment of their patients. The upgrade grants them the potential to treat a growing range of problems.
“We are thrilled to be the first in Georgia to offer this treatment option for our patients,” said the manager of the Gamma Knife program at St. Joseph’s, Rebecca Heitkam. “With the upgrade to Perfexion, we will be able to reach and treat lesions that previously were unattainable.”
The practice of Gamma Knife radio surgery is not new, dating back to 1967 when the technique was invented by Lars Leksell in Stockholm, Sweden. However, each new generation of technology allows for greater and greater results. That first unit was suitable only for the functional brain surgery, for use treating pain, movement and certain behavioral disorders. This new Gamma Knife Perfexion unit allows doctors to reach new levels of effectiveness and efficiency in quickly identifying, scheduling and treating an increasingly wider range of diseases and troubling abnormalities which could not be managed or removed with other strategies. I share in Joseph’s excitement at having the new unit in Atlanta.
When you move to an area, send your children to school in an area, or simply shop and enjoy recreation there, you expect that private owners, state and local government, and even the federal government have taken reasonable precautions to make sure that that place is safe and healthy. Unfortunately, Atlantans may soon find that they have been living, working and playing on top of soil that is full of toxic lead.
This was the story an Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter uncovered two weeks ago when she found that an Atlanta lead smelter had never been properly cleaned up after it ceased operation. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is now investigating the site of the old Evans Metal Company lead smelter at 740 Lambert Drive, near I-85, Piedmont Road, and Cheshire Bridge Road. Directly due to the work of the AJC, the EPA is now investigating whether the fact that the site was never properly cleaned could be affecting the health of residents in nearby areas.
According to state and federal law, potentially toxic sites such as the site of the old Evans Metal Company lead smelter are to be cleaned up before they are used for other purposes. But the Evans smelter, which ceased operations before clean up laws took effect, was forgotten by regulators. This means that the soil surrounding the old smelter could potentially be contaminate with lead.
Lead can pose a serious health risk. Just as we check old houses for lead paint, we also need to check our groundwater and soil for lead contamination. If ingested, especially by young children, lead can reduce IQ, cause behavioral problems, and underlie a whole range of health problems. In the case of the Evans smelter, which is now a concrete plant, the worry is that children living or attending school or day care in the area will experience lead contamination when they play in the dirt and put soil or dirty toys in their mouths.
According to experts, though the smelter stopped processing lead in 1994, lead in the soil would have remained relatively close to the surface through the years. The AJC found that private tests conducted in 2003 showed that large swaths of the property potentially contained dangerous amounts of lead. These tests were, illegally, not reported to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division even though regulations state that any tests that show dangerous lead levels should be reported within 30 days.
The biggest threat from this dirty smelter site is lead poisoning in children. According to the AJC, blood tests reported to the state from children in the area do not show an obvious pattern of lead poisoning, though according to experts, most children aren’t tested and lead poisoning has few apparent symptoms.
If you live in the area potentially affected by lead contamination (the nearest neighborhood is Morningside), here is what the AJC suggested you do:
Avoid bare dirt – This is the likeliest source of contamination
Test children – Lead testing is not a standard medical test given to children. Private doctors or public clinics can test for lead poisoning using a simple finger stick test.
Test your soil – The University of Georgia will test soil samples for $20 per sample. Contact the Fulton County extension office at 404-762-4077. According to the AJC, “Tulane University soil-lead expert Howard Mielke recommends separately sampling a few areas to get an idea of how lead levels may vary across a yard.”
This was the story an Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter uncovered two weeks ago when she found that an Atlanta lead smelter had never been properly cleaned up after it ceased operation. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is now investigating the site of the old Evans Metal Company lead smelter at 740 Lambert Drive, near I-85, Piedmont Road, and Cheshire Bridge Road. Directly due to the work of the AJC, the EPA is now investigating whether the fact that the site was never properly cleaned could be affecting the health of residents in nearby areas.
According to state and federal law, potentially toxic sites such as the site of the old Evans Metal Company lead smelter are to be cleaned up before they are used for other purposes. But the Evans smelter, which ceased operations before clean up laws took effect, was forgotten by regulators. This means that the soil surrounding the old smelter could potentially be contaminate with lead.
Lead can pose a serious health risk. Just as we check old houses for lead paint, we also need to check our groundwater and soil for lead contamination. If ingested, especially by young children, lead can reduce IQ, cause behavioral problems, and underlie a whole range of health problems. In the case of the Evans smelter, which is now a concrete plant, the worry is that children living or attending school or day care in the area will experience lead contamination when they play in the dirt and put soil or dirty toys in their mouths.
According to experts, though the smelter stopped processing lead in 1994, lead in the soil would have remained relatively close to the surface through the years. The AJC found that private tests conducted in 2003 showed that large swaths of the property potentially contained dangerous amounts of lead. These tests were, illegally, not reported to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division even though regulations state that any tests that show dangerous lead levels should be reported within 30 days.
The biggest threat from this dirty smelter site is lead poisoning in children. According to the AJC, blood tests reported to the state from children in the area do not show an obvious pattern of lead poisoning, though according to experts, most children aren’t tested and lead poisoning has few apparent symptoms.
If you live in the area potentially affected by lead contamination (the nearest neighborhood is Morningside), here is what the AJC suggested you do:
Avoid bare dirt – This is the likeliest source of contamination
Test children – Lead testing is not a standard medical test given to children. Private doctors or public clinics can test for lead poisoning using a simple finger stick test.
Test your soil – The University of Georgia will test soil samples for $20 per sample. Contact the Fulton County extension office at 404-762-4077. According to the AJC, “Tulane University soil-lead expert Howard Mielke recommends separately sampling a few areas to get an idea of how lead levels may vary across a yard.”
Labels: atlanta, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Georgia
On Fridays here at the MLN Law blog I like to take time to explore the brighter side of life. Today I want to call attention to two heroes who bravely saved a young girl from potential sexual assault at Stone Mountain Park right here in Metro Atlanta.
Two off-duty police officers, Sara Thomas, a GBI agent based in Athens, and Ruth Stringer, a DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant, both just happened to be visiting Stone Mountain Park on the grey and rainy afternoon of Sunday September 20th. Also at the park were Patrick Leithead, 36, who was lurking near the bathrooms, and a 13-year-old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Listening to their law enforcement training and instincts, the two off-duty officers both noticed Leithead, who was sitting on a bench near the restrooms, scoping out anyone who walked by.
"He was checking out everyone who walked by," Thomas told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. About this time, Thomas, who had just finished a hike down Stone Mountain, lost sight of Leithead, though not for long.
In the meantime Stringer had stepped into the women’s restroom. It was then that she saw a pair of male feet sticking out from under a stall. At first, as she told the AJC, she thought perhaps a father was helping a child, but that all changed as soon as she heard whimpering coming from inside the stall.
"I knew I could handle myself," said the unarmed ex-Marine, "but at the same time I didn't know what would be coming out at me."
Mustering her most authoritative voice, Stringer ordered the man to release the child. A teary 13-year-old girl emerged, telling Stringer that there was a man inside the stall. Stringer led the girl outside to safety, where she came across Thomas, who was scouring the area of Leithead.
About that time Leithead emerged from the bathroom and Thomas, using a Glock she had retrieved from her vehicle, was able to subdue him until someone could call 911.
Chillingly, Leithead admitted to police that he had entered the bathroom with the intention of raping the 13-year-old.
Both officers displayed presence of mind, great instincts, and a willingness to investigate a questionable situation, even when both had simply been at the park that day to exercise rather than fight crime. As Ruth Stringer later told the AJC, “You’re on duty 24 hours a day.”
Kudos to GBI Agent Sara Thomas and DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Ruth Stringer for their great police work in rescuing a 13-year-old girl from a potential sexual assault. Have a safe and healthy weekend.
Two off-duty police officers, Sara Thomas, a GBI agent based in Athens, and Ruth Stringer, a DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant, both just happened to be visiting Stone Mountain Park on the grey and rainy afternoon of Sunday September 20th. Also at the park were Patrick Leithead, 36, who was lurking near the bathrooms, and a 13-year-old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Listening to their law enforcement training and instincts, the two off-duty officers both noticed Leithead, who was sitting on a bench near the restrooms, scoping out anyone who walked by.
"He was checking out everyone who walked by," Thomas told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. About this time, Thomas, who had just finished a hike down Stone Mountain, lost sight of Leithead, though not for long.
In the meantime Stringer had stepped into the women’s restroom. It was then that she saw a pair of male feet sticking out from under a stall. At first, as she told the AJC, she thought perhaps a father was helping a child, but that all changed as soon as she heard whimpering coming from inside the stall.
"I knew I could handle myself," said the unarmed ex-Marine, "but at the same time I didn't know what would be coming out at me."
Mustering her most authoritative voice, Stringer ordered the man to release the child. A teary 13-year-old girl emerged, telling Stringer that there was a man inside the stall. Stringer led the girl outside to safety, where she came across Thomas, who was scouring the area of Leithead.
About that time Leithead emerged from the bathroom and Thomas, using a Glock she had retrieved from her vehicle, was able to subdue him until someone could call 911.
Chillingly, Leithead admitted to police that he had entered the bathroom with the intention of raping the 13-year-old.
Both officers displayed presence of mind, great instincts, and a willingness to investigate a questionable situation, even when both had simply been at the park that day to exercise rather than fight crime. As Ruth Stringer later told the AJC, “You’re on duty 24 hours a day.”
Kudos to GBI Agent Sara Thomas and DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Ruth Stringer for their great police work in rescuing a 13-year-old girl from a potential sexual assault. Have a safe and healthy weekend.
Labels: atlanta, sexual assault, sexual predator
A crash on Stone Mountain freeway last Tuesday claimed the lives of three Southern Company workers, all of whom were commuting in a carpool van. Six other Southern Company or Georgia Power workers were injured in the crash.
"This is a terrible tragedy for the Southern Company and Georgia Power families," said David Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Southern Co. "Our thoughts, prayers go out to the families, friends and co-workers of these employees."
According to DeKalb County police, the crash killed the driver and two passengers. The driver was Robert Harold Clinton Jr., 60. The passengers were Ollie Benny Stephens Jr., 49, and Cindy Fitzgerald, 54. All three lived in Lilburn.
The other driver, James Miles, 55, of Loganville, who was driving a Dodge Stratus, was not hurt in the collision, which shut down the eastbound lanes of Stone Mountain freeway for about three hours last Tuesday afternoon as officials cleared the crash and investigated.
According to officials, the accident was precipitated when the Dodge Stratus clipped the rear of the van while trying to change lanes. The hit caused the 15-person commuter van to lose control and overturn in traffic. Witnesses told police that the Stratus had been changing lanes erratically prior to the accident. As of last week, DeKalb police had filed no charges against Miles, but they say charges may be forthcoming after their investigation is complete.
VPSI, Inc. a Michigan-based company, owned the van. In a typical VPSI carpool, one of the commuters agrees to drive the van to and from work every day.
VPSI released the following statement concerning the crash:
"Like everyone, we are shocked and saddened by what happened today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families who have been touched by this tragedy. There's a lot that's unknown at this time. As the authorities investigate, we'll do what we can to help them."
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study from May which advised commuters that 15-passenger vans are more prone to roll over than other vehicles. Said the report, the risk of rolling over increases dramatically if the number of people in the van goes from less than 5 to more than 10. The report recommended that all passengers wear seatbelts at all time.
Using accident data from the Federal Transit Administration, however, the Association for Commuter Transportation said commuter vanpooling "is the safest mode of public transportation."
"To our knowledge, this accident is only the third vehicular accident involving a commuter vanpool that has resulted in fatalities since the inception of commuter vanpooling in the mid 1970s," said a spokesman for ACT, a Washington-based group that supports different forms of commuter transportation.
The Georgia Regional Transportation Association canceled its 50 state-run commuter vanpools in May, saying it planned to turn the idea over to private vanpool companies, such as VPSI and Enterprise Rent-a-Car. VPSI has more than 300 vanpools in operation in metro Atlanta, the company's Website said.
Do you or anyone you know commute with VPSI or another commuter vanpool? Be sure to show them this blog post and make sure they are wearing seatbelts at all times while commuting. While commuter vanpools may feel like a bus or train, their high risk of rollover should be a cause for concern for any commuter. Buckle up and arrive to and from work in one piece.
"This is a terrible tragedy for the Southern Company and Georgia Power families," said David Ratcliffe, chairman, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Southern Co. "Our thoughts, prayers go out to the families, friends and co-workers of these employees."
According to DeKalb County police, the crash killed the driver and two passengers. The driver was Robert Harold Clinton Jr., 60. The passengers were Ollie Benny Stephens Jr., 49, and Cindy Fitzgerald, 54. All three lived in Lilburn.
The other driver, James Miles, 55, of Loganville, who was driving a Dodge Stratus, was not hurt in the collision, which shut down the eastbound lanes of Stone Mountain freeway for about three hours last Tuesday afternoon as officials cleared the crash and investigated.
According to officials, the accident was precipitated when the Dodge Stratus clipped the rear of the van while trying to change lanes. The hit caused the 15-person commuter van to lose control and overturn in traffic. Witnesses told police that the Stratus had been changing lanes erratically prior to the accident. As of last week, DeKalb police had filed no charges against Miles, but they say charges may be forthcoming after their investigation is complete.
VPSI, Inc. a Michigan-based company, owned the van. In a typical VPSI carpool, one of the commuters agrees to drive the van to and from work every day.
VPSI released the following statement concerning the crash:
"Like everyone, we are shocked and saddened by what happened today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families who have been touched by this tragedy. There's a lot that's unknown at this time. As the authorities investigate, we'll do what we can to help them."
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study from May which advised commuters that 15-passenger vans are more prone to roll over than other vehicles. Said the report, the risk of rolling over increases dramatically if the number of people in the van goes from less than 5 to more than 10. The report recommended that all passengers wear seatbelts at all time.
Using accident data from the Federal Transit Administration, however, the Association for Commuter Transportation said commuter vanpooling "is the safest mode of public transportation."
"To our knowledge, this accident is only the third vehicular accident involving a commuter vanpool that has resulted in fatalities since the inception of commuter vanpooling in the mid 1970s," said a spokesman for ACT, a Washington-based group that supports different forms of commuter transportation.
The Georgia Regional Transportation Association canceled its 50 state-run commuter vanpools in May, saying it planned to turn the idea over to private vanpool companies, such as VPSI and Enterprise Rent-a-Car. VPSI has more than 300 vanpools in operation in metro Atlanta, the company's Website said.
Do you or anyone you know commute with VPSI or another commuter vanpool? Be sure to show them this blog post and make sure they are wearing seatbelts at all times while commuting. While commuter vanpools may feel like a bus or train, their high risk of rollover should be a cause for concern for any commuter. Buckle up and arrive to and from work in one piece.
Labels: atlanta, car accidents
Road rage was the culprit in a recent assault case in Sandy Springs. According to the victim, a female driver, a man driving a red sports car near Abernathy Road and Roswell Road on Monday afternoon became angry with her because she slowed her car in traffic. The man left his car, approached the woman’s window, and cursed at her. Then he punched her in the face.
After that, the man sped away, but not before the woman was able to note down his tag number. Police are currently investigating the incident and we’ll bring you more here on the MLN Law blog as the news breaks.
This incident was just one more example of why Atlanta was recently ranked 4th in the nation when it comes to road rage incidents. Interestingly enough, despite that ranking, Georgia does not have any specific road rage laws on the books. Instead, cases like the Monday incident in Sandy Springs are prosecuted criminally as assault and battery or, if someone is killed, vehicular manslaughter.
I’ve written about the signs of road rage before, but as back to school season kicks into full swing, it bears repeating. You are road raging (or the victim of another driver’s road rage) when someone is:
• Aggressive driving such as tailgating, following closely, and cutting into lanes of traffic
• Deliberately preventing someone from merging
• Sounding the vehicle’s horn or flashing its lights excessively
• Using rude gestures
• Shouting verbal abuse or threats
• Intentionally causing a wreck
• Exiting the car and attempting to start a confrontation (as occurred in the Sandy Springs incident)
• Striking someone else’s vehicle with an object
• Threatening to use or actually using a firearm or other deadly weapon
• Spitting
The latest numbers on road rage show about 1,200 incidents per year in the United States, with at least 300 per year leading to serious injury or even fatality.
What you might not know about road rage is that the American Psychological Association has classified it as a mental disorder called “intermittent explosive disorder.” While there is no excuse for road rage, if you or someone you know shows signs of intermittent explosive disorder, it is best to seek treatment before a blow up behind the wheel leads to an accident, an arrest or something much worse.
If you have found yourself the victim of road rage, do not panic. Simply continue to obey all traffic laws and, if possible, extract yourself from the situation by pulling up to the nearest police station and honking your horn loudly. Use good judgment when pulling over to the side of the road or anywhere else not associated with law enforcement. While most road ragers will go on their way once the incident has passed, others – like the perpetrator in the Sandy Springs incident – might exit their vehicles to continue the perceived “fight.” Don’t let yourself become a statistic.
After that, the man sped away, but not before the woman was able to note down his tag number. Police are currently investigating the incident and we’ll bring you more here on the MLN Law blog as the news breaks.
This incident was just one more example of why Atlanta was recently ranked 4th in the nation when it comes to road rage incidents. Interestingly enough, despite that ranking, Georgia does not have any specific road rage laws on the books. Instead, cases like the Monday incident in Sandy Springs are prosecuted criminally as assault and battery or, if someone is killed, vehicular manslaughter.
I’ve written about the signs of road rage before, but as back to school season kicks into full swing, it bears repeating. You are road raging (or the victim of another driver’s road rage) when someone is:
• Aggressive driving such as tailgating, following closely, and cutting into lanes of traffic
• Deliberately preventing someone from merging
• Sounding the vehicle’s horn or flashing its lights excessively
• Using rude gestures
• Shouting verbal abuse or threats
• Intentionally causing a wreck
• Exiting the car and attempting to start a confrontation (as occurred in the Sandy Springs incident)
• Striking someone else’s vehicle with an object
• Threatening to use or actually using a firearm or other deadly weapon
• Spitting
The latest numbers on road rage show about 1,200 incidents per year in the United States, with at least 300 per year leading to serious injury or even fatality.
What you might not know about road rage is that the American Psychological Association has classified it as a mental disorder called “intermittent explosive disorder.” While there is no excuse for road rage, if you or someone you know shows signs of intermittent explosive disorder, it is best to seek treatment before a blow up behind the wheel leads to an accident, an arrest or something much worse.
If you have found yourself the victim of road rage, do not panic. Simply continue to obey all traffic laws and, if possible, extract yourself from the situation by pulling up to the nearest police station and honking your horn loudly. Use good judgment when pulling over to the side of the road or anywhere else not associated with law enforcement. While most road ragers will go on their way once the incident has passed, others – like the perpetrator in the Sandy Springs incident – might exit their vehicles to continue the perceived “fight.” Don’t let yourself become a statistic.
Since the H1N1 outbreak first came to light earlier this year, there has been a lot of information and equally as much misinformation spread about the disease. Is it caused by pigs or isn’t it? Do you suffer a fever with it or don’t you? Are children and the elderly the most at risk?
As for that last question, the CDC is now saying that children from ages 2-4 are at the prime age to contract and spread swine flu. Because of this scary statistic, one Metro Atlanta county is fighting back – with flu vaccine.
Fulton County expects to receive their first shipment of the H1N1 vaccine today, Tuesday, October 6th, and further expects to begin administering the vaccine – given via a nasal spray – tomorrow. Fulton County plans to receive 5,300 doses of the much needed preventative. Those desiring the flu vaccine should head out to one of Fulton County’s eight public health clinics in order to receive the treatment. The vaccine is completely free.
Due to the nature of H1N1, public health officials are warning citizens that children 2 to 4 years of age and their caregivers should be the primary recipients of the H1N1 vaccine. On the other hand, officials also assure the public that no one who turns up at one of Fulton’s County’s public health clinics asking for the vaccine will be turned away until all the doses are used.
Further warnings go out to pregnant women and anyone suffering from a compromised immune system. The nasal H1N1 vaccine is made from a live virus, and could have negative consequences on the health of immuno-compromised individuals.
Fulton County is not the only county relying on a shipment of H1N1` vaccine this week. According to state health officials, numerous counties are expected the receive doses of the vaccine in Tuesday’s shipment, and more will be following later in the month.
Though don’t rush out to the clinic for your vaccine just yet. Fulton County officials warned that they are relying on the mail for the shipment and may experience a delay. Check local news casts tonight and tomorrow morning for the most up to date information about the H1N1 vaccine in Fulton County. And don’t forget that a parent or legal guardian must be present in order for a child to receive the vaccine.
If you are a Fulton County resident and/or the parent or caregiver of a 2-4 year old child, don’t delay getting the H1N1 vaccine. Here are the locations of the 8 public health clinics in Fulton County:
North Fulton Regional Health Center, 3155 Royal Drive, Suite 125, Alpharetta
Adamsville Health Center, 3699 Bakers Ferry Road, southwest Atlanta
Sandy Springs Health Center, 330 Johnson Ferry Road, northeast Atlanta
Center Hill Health Center, 3201 Atlanta Industrial Parkway, Suite 302, northwest Atlanta
Center for Health and Rehabilitation, 265 Boulevard, northeast Atlanta
Neighborhood Union Health Center, 186 Sunset Ave., northwest Atlanta
Lakewood Health Center, 1853 Jonesboro Road, southeast Atlanta
College Park Regional Health Center, 1920 John Wesley Ave., College Park.
For more on this story:
CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Gets Swine Flu, from DriveaFasterCar.com
As for that last question, the CDC is now saying that children from ages 2-4 are at the prime age to contract and spread swine flu. Because of this scary statistic, one Metro Atlanta county is fighting back – with flu vaccine.
Fulton County expects to receive their first shipment of the H1N1 vaccine today, Tuesday, October 6th, and further expects to begin administering the vaccine – given via a nasal spray – tomorrow. Fulton County plans to receive 5,300 doses of the much needed preventative. Those desiring the flu vaccine should head out to one of Fulton County’s eight public health clinics in order to receive the treatment. The vaccine is completely free.
Due to the nature of H1N1, public health officials are warning citizens that children 2 to 4 years of age and their caregivers should be the primary recipients of the H1N1 vaccine. On the other hand, officials also assure the public that no one who turns up at one of Fulton’s County’s public health clinics asking for the vaccine will be turned away until all the doses are used.
Further warnings go out to pregnant women and anyone suffering from a compromised immune system. The nasal H1N1 vaccine is made from a live virus, and could have negative consequences on the health of immuno-compromised individuals.
Fulton County is not the only county relying on a shipment of H1N1` vaccine this week. According to state health officials, numerous counties are expected the receive doses of the vaccine in Tuesday’s shipment, and more will be following later in the month.
Though don’t rush out to the clinic for your vaccine just yet. Fulton County officials warned that they are relying on the mail for the shipment and may experience a delay. Check local news casts tonight and tomorrow morning for the most up to date information about the H1N1 vaccine in Fulton County. And don’t forget that a parent or legal guardian must be present in order for a child to receive the vaccine.
If you are a Fulton County resident and/or the parent or caregiver of a 2-4 year old child, don’t delay getting the H1N1 vaccine. Here are the locations of the 8 public health clinics in Fulton County:
North Fulton Regional Health Center, 3155 Royal Drive, Suite 125, Alpharetta
Adamsville Health Center, 3699 Bakers Ferry Road, southwest Atlanta
Sandy Springs Health Center, 330 Johnson Ferry Road, northeast Atlanta
Center Hill Health Center, 3201 Atlanta Industrial Parkway, Suite 302, northwest Atlanta
Center for Health and Rehabilitation, 265 Boulevard, northeast Atlanta
Neighborhood Union Health Center, 186 Sunset Ave., northwest Atlanta
Lakewood Health Center, 1853 Jonesboro Road, southeast Atlanta
College Park Regional Health Center, 1920 John Wesley Ave., College Park.
For more on this story:
CNN’s Sanjay Gupta Gets Swine Flu, from DriveaFasterCar.com
Labels: atlanta, child safety, Georgia, H1N1, solid medical advice
A bathtub accident that took place last Wednesday in southwest Atlanta illustrates the all too real danger of water scalds.
In what police are considering an accident, a three-year-old child received scalds to his body during a bath. The incident came about after the child’s mother, on realizing there was no hot water for the boy’s bath, boiled water and poured it into the tub. A friend of the mother’s accidentally took a second pot of boiling water and poured it onto the child.
The boy was taken to the burn unit at Grady Memorial Hospital after the scald, where he was hospitalized in serious condition. Police are considering the incident accidental and no one has been charged with a crime.
Whether they occur through incidents with boiling water or through a poorly regulated hot water heater, childhood scalds are an all too common threat for young children. And scalds often have a devastating effect long after the initial incident. Treatment for burns is invasive and long lasting, and the effects of scalds and burns, including scarring and other physical and emotional disability – can stay with a person for life.
As with most childhood accidents, scalding can be prevented. Take these few simple precautions to reduce the risk of a burn or scald occurring in your home:
1.) Reduce the temperature on the water heater – 118 degrees Fahrenheit is a suitable maximum temperature for most home water use. Be sure to lower the temperature on your hot water heater, but also perform a check with a meat thermometer, as some hot water heater temperature regulators have been shown to be faulty.
2.) Purchase an anti-scald device – Anti-scald devices respond to rapid changes in water temperature, pressure or both. Head to your local hardware store for recommendations for the right anti-scald device for your home and situation.
3.) Never leave children alone in the bathtub or bathroom – Children are curious, and it can be surprisingly easy for them to turn the knobs in the bathtub or even the sink and release a stream of very hot water. Supervise children near water sources, and teach them that though the faucets may seem interesting to their developing minds, they are not toys.
Remember, children have thinner and more sensitive skin than adults, so you should always take special care to keep your young ones bathwater at a comfortable temperature. Two out of three accidental injuries of young children last year involved burns. Fortunately, there are many precautions you can take to prevent your child from suffering a burn or scald injury.
If you or your child has been scalded due to a faulty appliance, you may have legal recourse. Call MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule your free consultation.
In what police are considering an accident, a three-year-old child received scalds to his body during a bath. The incident came about after the child’s mother, on realizing there was no hot water for the boy’s bath, boiled water and poured it into the tub. A friend of the mother’s accidentally took a second pot of boiling water and poured it onto the child.
The boy was taken to the burn unit at Grady Memorial Hospital after the scald, where he was hospitalized in serious condition. Police are considering the incident accidental and no one has been charged with a crime.
Whether they occur through incidents with boiling water or through a poorly regulated hot water heater, childhood scalds are an all too common threat for young children. And scalds often have a devastating effect long after the initial incident. Treatment for burns is invasive and long lasting, and the effects of scalds and burns, including scarring and other physical and emotional disability – can stay with a person for life.
As with most childhood accidents, scalding can be prevented. Take these few simple precautions to reduce the risk of a burn or scald occurring in your home:
1.) Reduce the temperature on the water heater – 118 degrees Fahrenheit is a suitable maximum temperature for most home water use. Be sure to lower the temperature on your hot water heater, but also perform a check with a meat thermometer, as some hot water heater temperature regulators have been shown to be faulty.
2.) Purchase an anti-scald device – Anti-scald devices respond to rapid changes in water temperature, pressure or both. Head to your local hardware store for recommendations for the right anti-scald device for your home and situation.
3.) Never leave children alone in the bathtub or bathroom – Children are curious, and it can be surprisingly easy for them to turn the knobs in the bathtub or even the sink and release a stream of very hot water. Supervise children near water sources, and teach them that though the faucets may seem interesting to their developing minds, they are not toys.
Remember, children have thinner and more sensitive skin than adults, so you should always take special care to keep your young ones bathwater at a comfortable temperature. Two out of three accidental injuries of young children last year involved burns. Fortunately, there are many precautions you can take to prevent your child from suffering a burn or scald injury.
If you or your child has been scalded due to a faulty appliance, you may have legal recourse. Call MLN Law at 404-531-9700 to schedule your free consultation.
Labels: atlanta, child safety, scalding water
Over the past year, it has become increasingly dangerous to be a college student in Atlanta. A rash of robberies and shootings, and even a murder, have plagued the campuses of Georgia Tech, Clark Atlanta, Spelman and Morehouse colleges. According to a recent AJC article, robberies are also up at Metro Atlanta campuses. Whether an exploding campus population or the declining economy is to blame, it is clear that Metro Atlanta college students are facing more danger than ever while simply trying to get an education.
Are you the parent of a Metro Atlanta college student? As I have mentioned here before at the MLN Law Blog, studies have shown that teenagers and college students may actually be hardwired to take risks. If you haven’t already, its time to have a talk with them about campus safety. Here are a few safety tips to stress to your children when preparing them for campus safety:
1.) Always be aware of your surroundings – Ditch the iPod and cell phone when walking on or around campus, especially in broad daylight
2.) Avoid walking alone, especially at night – Most college campuses will provide a police escort to a car or dorm during night time hours
3.) Make sure your cell phone is charged and ready to use – If your college student has trouble keeping his or her cell phone charged, consider investing in a portable charger. While it won’t charge the cell phone much, a portable charging device will at least allow your child to charge their phone enough to call for emergency services
4.) Tell family or friends if going somewhere with someone new – College is a time for meeting new friends. Be smart when getting in the car or leaving with strangers. They may not be who they seem to be
5.) Do not use drugs or alcohol – This is a sure way to lose control
6.) If you are being followed, change direction and head to a well-lit area
7.) Always lock your residence – Be sure to keep windows and doors closed and locked at all times, even if you have friends on the way over. Keep curtains and blinds closed at night to prevent anyone from seeing in.
8.) Do not prop open doors to dorms or apartments – While fishing for a key or pass card can be an annoyance, open doors are an invitation for predators or robbers
9.) Lock your vehicle and store valuables out of sight – College campuses are a favorite target for thieves. Students often have iPods, stereos, GPSs and laptop computers, all items that can be easily sold by thieves
10.) Keep your valuables near you – Do not let your book bag, laptop, purse or other valuables out of your site. Be especially vigilant in common areas such as the student union, cafeteria and library
The uptick in Atlanta crime has bled over to college campuses. Discuss these important safety tips with your kids and keep them safe to learn and grow.
Are you the parent of a Metro Atlanta college student? As I have mentioned here before at the MLN Law Blog, studies have shown that teenagers and college students may actually be hardwired to take risks. If you haven’t already, its time to have a talk with them about campus safety. Here are a few safety tips to stress to your children when preparing them for campus safety:
1.) Always be aware of your surroundings – Ditch the iPod and cell phone when walking on or around campus, especially in broad daylight
2.) Avoid walking alone, especially at night – Most college campuses will provide a police escort to a car or dorm during night time hours
3.) Make sure your cell phone is charged and ready to use – If your college student has trouble keeping his or her cell phone charged, consider investing in a portable charger. While it won’t charge the cell phone much, a portable charging device will at least allow your child to charge their phone enough to call for emergency services
4.) Tell family or friends if going somewhere with someone new – College is a time for meeting new friends. Be smart when getting in the car or leaving with strangers. They may not be who they seem to be
5.) Do not use drugs or alcohol – This is a sure way to lose control
6.) If you are being followed, change direction and head to a well-lit area
7.) Always lock your residence – Be sure to keep windows and doors closed and locked at all times, even if you have friends on the way over. Keep curtains and blinds closed at night to prevent anyone from seeing in.
8.) Do not prop open doors to dorms or apartments – While fishing for a key or pass card can be an annoyance, open doors are an invitation for predators or robbers
9.) Lock your vehicle and store valuables out of sight – College campuses are a favorite target for thieves. Students often have iPods, stereos, GPSs and laptop computers, all items that can be easily sold by thieves
10.) Keep your valuables near you – Do not let your book bag, laptop, purse or other valuables out of your site. Be especially vigilant in common areas such as the student union, cafeteria and library
The uptick in Atlanta crime has bled over to college campuses. Discuss these important safety tips with your kids and keep them safe to learn and grow.
Labels: atlanta, college students, violent crime victim
Child sexual exploitation is a topic few people can stomach, but unfortunately, adolescent girls are being commercially exploited for sexual purposes here in Georgia to the tune of 250 children per month. That means that more adolescent girls are harmed by commercial sexual prostitution (i.e. prostitution, sex trafficking, or pornography) each month than are killed in car accidents in an entire year. And child sexual exploitation is not just an inner city problem. The problem is statewide and pervasive.
Child sexual exploitation is a chilling problem and one that we all like to think could never happen in our backyard. But fortunately for these suffering young girls, they now have advocates in Georgia – a public/private partnership called A Future, Not a Past.
Atlanta has been identified by the FBI as one of the top hubs in the nation when it comes to child prostitution. That means that children can been seen on the city streets offering sexual services and that child sex trafficking rings often transport children through Atlanta on the way to other destinations.
A Future, Not a Past was started as the result of this finding. Run by the Juvenile Justice Fund, A Future Not a Past seeks to prove that young girls who find themselves caught up in prostitution are not, in fact, criminals, but victims of the adult criminals who serve as their pimps and traffickers. Through research, intervention, prevention and education, A Future, Not a Past strives to curb child prostitution through whatever means possible.
So far, efforts have included a study, which found that 65% of men searching for sex on popular web sites like Craigslist respond to advertisements promising “young” girls. They have also attempted educated the public about the supply and demand side of child commercial sexual exploitation. As long as “johns” suffering relatively few consequences for pay for sex with children and teens, the problem will continue.
A Future, Not a Past also holds public events such as classes and seminars to educate the public about the facts of child commercial sexual exploitation and what they can do to aid the fight. One bright note comes from the law enforcement community. Because Atlanta has been identified as a hub, and because internet-related sexual transactions often cross state lines, the FBI has joined state and local law enforcement to curb child commercial exploitation.
But A Future, Not a Past can’t do it alone. It will take the efforts of all Georgians to stamp out this insidious and heartbreaking tragedy. The A Future, Not a Past website includes information on the warning signs that a child might be a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. If you suspect that a child is being commercially sexually exploited, contact law enforcement or one of the below resources immediately:
Georgia Statewide Tip Line
(404) 577-8477
National Center For Missing and Exploited Children Hotline
1-800-THE-LOST
Dear John Hotline
(404) 379-3602
Child sexual exploitation is a chilling problem and one that we all like to think could never happen in our backyard. But fortunately for these suffering young girls, they now have advocates in Georgia – a public/private partnership called A Future, Not a Past.
Atlanta has been identified by the FBI as one of the top hubs in the nation when it comes to child prostitution. That means that children can been seen on the city streets offering sexual services and that child sex trafficking rings often transport children through Atlanta on the way to other destinations.
A Future, Not a Past was started as the result of this finding. Run by the Juvenile Justice Fund, A Future Not a Past seeks to prove that young girls who find themselves caught up in prostitution are not, in fact, criminals, but victims of the adult criminals who serve as their pimps and traffickers. Through research, intervention, prevention and education, A Future, Not a Past strives to curb child prostitution through whatever means possible.
So far, efforts have included a study, which found that 65% of men searching for sex on popular web sites like Craigslist respond to advertisements promising “young” girls. They have also attempted educated the public about the supply and demand side of child commercial sexual exploitation. As long as “johns” suffering relatively few consequences for pay for sex with children and teens, the problem will continue.
A Future, Not a Past also holds public events such as classes and seminars to educate the public about the facts of child commercial sexual exploitation and what they can do to aid the fight. One bright note comes from the law enforcement community. Because Atlanta has been identified as a hub, and because internet-related sexual transactions often cross state lines, the FBI has joined state and local law enforcement to curb child commercial exploitation.
But A Future, Not a Past can’t do it alone. It will take the efforts of all Georgians to stamp out this insidious and heartbreaking tragedy. The A Future, Not a Past website includes information on the warning signs that a child might be a victim of commercial sexual exploitation. If you suspect that a child is being commercially sexually exploited, contact law enforcement or one of the below resources immediately:
Georgia Statewide Tip Line
(404) 577-8477
National Center For Missing and Exploited Children Hotline
1-800-THE-LOST
Dear John Hotline
(404) 379-3602
Labels: atlanta, child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation, Georgia
Metro Atlanta school officials are encouraging schools and parents to “be there” for their children this school year. “Be There” is a national multimedia campaign designed to encourage parents to turn everyday situations with their children into “teachable moments” and thus improve student achievements, even when they can’t be present in schools.
Fourteen school districts in Metro Atlanta will participate in “Be There,” which is a national campaign based in part on Japanese parenting and educational philosophy and in part on the popularity of the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink and Drive” advertising campaign of the 1980’s.
David Voss, who created the “Be There” campaign, explained the concept: “There’s a large section of parents who aren’t coming to school either because of conflicts in their schedule, they’re busy with two jobs or just don’t feel they fit into the PTA clique. That doesn’t mean they should simply delegate education to the schools.”
To Voss, “being there” means turning ordinary moments into extraordinary, teachable moments by encouraging parents to get involved n their children’s education even when they never have time to set foot into a school. The campaign comes in response to declining education budgets and overworked parents who, due to the economy, often more than ever simply can’t find the time away from work and responsibilities to take the time to get involved in their children’s school activities.
The campaign bombards parents with inspirational reminders in an effort to make “being there” the norm for parents. According to Voss, who visited Japan in late 1980, Japanese parents have “being there” down to a science. He aims for American parents to emulate Japanese parents’ emphasis on education and every day, “teachable moments.”
The program is free for schools all around the country, though there will be a cost associated with duplicating program materials.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that, according to Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for Gwinnett County schools, which launched the campaign last September, is already making a huge difference in the district and has become a unifying theme for its schools.
“We think it has a lot of possibilities,” she said.
As quoted in the AJC:
Fourteen school districts in Metro Atlanta will participate in “Be There,” which is a national campaign based in part on Japanese parenting and educational philosophy and in part on the popularity of the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink and Drive” advertising campaign of the 1980’s.
David Voss, who created the “Be There” campaign, explained the concept: “There’s a large section of parents who aren’t coming to school either because of conflicts in their schedule, they’re busy with two jobs or just don’t feel they fit into the PTA clique. That doesn’t mean they should simply delegate education to the schools.”
To Voss, “being there” means turning ordinary moments into extraordinary, teachable moments by encouraging parents to get involved n their children’s education even when they never have time to set foot into a school. The campaign comes in response to declining education budgets and overworked parents who, due to the economy, often more than ever simply can’t find the time away from work and responsibilities to take the time to get involved in their children’s school activities.
The campaign bombards parents with inspirational reminders in an effort to make “being there” the norm for parents. According to Voss, who visited Japan in late 1980, Japanese parents have “being there” down to a science. He aims for American parents to emulate Japanese parents’ emphasis on education and every day, “teachable moments.”
The program is free for schools all around the country, though there will be a cost associated with duplicating program materials.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that, according to Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for Gwinnett County schools, which launched the campaign last September, is already making a huge difference in the district and has become a unifying theme for its schools.
“We think it has a lot of possibilities,” she said.
As quoted in the AJC:
Roach said that posters in Spanish and English promoting parental involvement were provided to all the schools, parent tip sheets were distributed and a Web site was launched.
She said the campaign “points out how simple connections we make every day with our children make a difference and hopefully will help parents look for those ways, slow down and take advantage of those opportunities.”
Labels: atlanta, child safety
When it comes to Atlanta’s driving habits, there is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that, over the past year, Atlantans have found more cost-effective and environmentally friendly ways to commute than 9 other studied cities. Environmentalists and other eco-minded individuals can rejoice over that. The bad news is that the changes in commuter habits came in response to the current economic recession.
A new study, commissioned by IBM, on the effects of “commuter pain,” found that out of 10 studied cities, Atlantans had changed their commute more than any other city’s residents. About 27.1% of Atlantans now use alternative commutes, work from home, or simply do not work at all, found the study.
“As businesses went through and had to take staff reductions, you had more people either not commuting, or starting small businesses and working from home,” guessed Raul Arce, a vice president for travel and transportation at IBM who lives in the Atlanta area, as quoted in the AJC.
Arce cited the fact that companies are allowing more people to telecommute as the practice becomes more common and the necessary technology becomes more accessible in residential areas.
For the study, IBM surveyed 4,446 adult drivers in 10 U.S. cities in August 2009. They looked at work performance, gas prices, sleep deprivation, stress, anger and other “painful” issues.
In better news, Atlantans also came out 10 out of 10 in the study when it comes to negative health effects from traffic. Residents of nine other cities reported more anger and stress from traffic than did Atlantans. Miami topped the list, with 27.3% of residents reporting negative health effects from traffic.
Another good and bad news indicator – last year Atlanta came in 2nd in overall “commuter pain” out of the ten studied cities. While some could look at the finding as proof that Atlantans have embraced the alternative commute, a pessimist might look at the same numbers and see that the recession has hit our part of the country exceedingly hard.
If the study seems to contradict earlier studies we reported on that ranked Atlanta high in both traffic and road rage, two reasons could be behind the discrepancy. First, IBM used an internet poll, something that survey purists often deride as unscientific. Also, IBM’s poll numbers came from August 2009 – a high point in the recession – while earlier studies took data from several years ago. So was this poll good news about Atlantans commuting habits or bad news about just how hard the recession has hit our fair city? You be the judge of that.
A new study, commissioned by IBM, on the effects of “commuter pain,” found that out of 10 studied cities, Atlantans had changed their commute more than any other city’s residents. About 27.1% of Atlantans now use alternative commutes, work from home, or simply do not work at all, found the study.
“As businesses went through and had to take staff reductions, you had more people either not commuting, or starting small businesses and working from home,” guessed Raul Arce, a vice president for travel and transportation at IBM who lives in the Atlanta area, as quoted in the AJC.
Arce cited the fact that companies are allowing more people to telecommute as the practice becomes more common and the necessary technology becomes more accessible in residential areas.
For the study, IBM surveyed 4,446 adult drivers in 10 U.S. cities in August 2009. They looked at work performance, gas prices, sleep deprivation, stress, anger and other “painful” issues.
In better news, Atlantans also came out 10 out of 10 in the study when it comes to negative health effects from traffic. Residents of nine other cities reported more anger and stress from traffic than did Atlantans. Miami topped the list, with 27.3% of residents reporting negative health effects from traffic.
Another good and bad news indicator – last year Atlanta came in 2nd in overall “commuter pain” out of the ten studied cities. While some could look at the finding as proof that Atlantans have embraced the alternative commute, a pessimist might look at the same numbers and see that the recession has hit our part of the country exceedingly hard.
If the study seems to contradict earlier studies we reported on that ranked Atlanta high in both traffic and road rage, two reasons could be behind the discrepancy. First, IBM used an internet poll, something that survey purists often deride as unscientific. Also, IBM’s poll numbers came from August 2009 – a high point in the recession – while earlier studies took data from several years ago. So was this poll good news about Atlantans commuting habits or bad news about just how hard the recession has hit our fair city? You be the judge of that.
When asked to name the most dangerous aspect of a school bus, many parents would be tempted to cite a lack of seat belts or the potential for bullying while the driver’s head is turned. Very few parents would likely list hijacking among their list of school bus related concerns – until a couple of weeks ago when a man attempted to hijack a school bus in Atlanta.
At around 4pm on Thursday, August 27, 2009, a school bus driver was transporting her teenage charges down Boulevard Rd. When she made a routine stop and opened the doors, a man forced his way onto the bus and began attacking the driver and one teenager.
While the fight ensued, the quick thinking teenagers opened the bus’s emergency exit and filed out of the back, then called for help.
The attacker was Arris Pitmon, 23, who bystanders described variously as shirtless or “butt naked.” During the attack Pitmon climbed in through the driver’s side window, wrested control of the bus from the driver, and then followed her to the back of the bus where she had retreated with the students. From that point, a 16-year-old male engaged with Pitmon and attempted to take the bus from him. According to the AJC, the still moving bus eventually jumped the sidewalk, slid down a hill, and crashed into a fence.
By that time several gardeners from a nearby church were able to surround the bus and tackle Pitmon as he fled. At that point, bystanders began attacking the hijacker until one of the groundskeepers could pin and subdue him.
Pitmon is being held at the Grady Hospital Detention Center, charged with, among other things, 13 counts of false imprisonment, 13 counts of reckless conduct, four counts of battery, one count of theft by taking, one count of interference with government property and one count of damage to property. As a result of the hijacking, one injured student and the bus driver were transported to Grady Memorial Hospital. According to school officials, no one was seriously injured and the hospital visits were just a precaution.
Officials agree that the outcome of the hijacking represented a best case scenario. In the worst case, the school bus could have overturned due to the rocking and erratic maneuvering caused by the hijacking. And, if the assailant had been armed, a whole new level of danger could have materialized.
In response to the hijacking, Atlanta public school’s transportation and security divisions are investigating witnesses and trying to identify protocols to prevent hijacking in the future.
In another Metro Atlanta bus-related incident, a Sandy Springs 16-year-old was injured when he jumped out of the rear door of a moving school bus.
What is your opinion on the Atlanta school bus hijacking and school bus safety and general? How do you think they, and school districts around the country, can prevent a hijacking incident?
At around 4pm on Thursday, August 27, 2009, a school bus driver was transporting her teenage charges down Boulevard Rd. When she made a routine stop and opened the doors, a man forced his way onto the bus and began attacking the driver and one teenager.
While the fight ensued, the quick thinking teenagers opened the bus’s emergency exit and filed out of the back, then called for help.
The attacker was Arris Pitmon, 23, who bystanders described variously as shirtless or “butt naked.” During the attack Pitmon climbed in through the driver’s side window, wrested control of the bus from the driver, and then followed her to the back of the bus where she had retreated with the students. From that point, a 16-year-old male engaged with Pitmon and attempted to take the bus from him. According to the AJC, the still moving bus eventually jumped the sidewalk, slid down a hill, and crashed into a fence.
By that time several gardeners from a nearby church were able to surround the bus and tackle Pitmon as he fled. At that point, bystanders began attacking the hijacker until one of the groundskeepers could pin and subdue him.
Pitmon is being held at the Grady Hospital Detention Center, charged with, among other things, 13 counts of false imprisonment, 13 counts of reckless conduct, four counts of battery, one count of theft by taking, one count of interference with government property and one count of damage to property. As a result of the hijacking, one injured student and the bus driver were transported to Grady Memorial Hospital. According to school officials, no one was seriously injured and the hospital visits were just a precaution.
Officials agree that the outcome of the hijacking represented a best case scenario. In the worst case, the school bus could have overturned due to the rocking and erratic maneuvering caused by the hijacking. And, if the assailant had been armed, a whole new level of danger could have materialized.
In response to the hijacking, Atlanta public school’s transportation and security divisions are investigating witnesses and trying to identify protocols to prevent hijacking in the future.
In another Metro Atlanta bus-related incident, a Sandy Springs 16-year-old was injured when he jumped out of the rear door of a moving school bus.
What is your opinion on the Atlanta school bus hijacking and school bus safety and general? How do you think they, and school districts around the country, can prevent a hijacking incident?
Labels: atlanta, school bus, school bus safety
It is common knowledge that public swimming pools need to be maintained and treated with chlorine and proper pH levels in order to protect swimmers, but a recent investigative report published in the AJC showed that many metro Atlanta pools and spas must have missed the memo.
In Gwinnett County alone, inspectors found at least 75 incidences where public pools and spas had not treated the water with chlorine. Hundreds more public pools and spas were closed due to critical violations over the summer – violations that could have put the bathing public at risk for waterborne diseases or infection by bacteria and parasites. Inspectors also found that some businesses were cited repeatedly, raising questions about these businesses’ habits when it comes to water treatment.
Public pools are especially prone to health issues due to the sheer amount of numbers of people who use the pool and, if the pool is used by children, the occurrence of what the pool industry called “fecal accidents.”
As quoted in the AJC:
Waterborne diseases can include gastrointestinal illness, an ailment that many people don’t associate with a trip to the pool or spa. Another risk is infection with the parasite cryptosporidium. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), over the past few years they have been receiving an escalating number of reports of outbreaks associated with recreational water use.
Said the AJC:
The CDC did offer up a tip for concerned public swimming pool users – test the water yourself. Pool supply shops and home supply stores sell simple test strips that will change color to show whether the pool’s chemistry is properly calibrated and it is safe for use. These strips are expensive, and an imperative if you plan to swim in a public pool.
The tip is especially relevant to parents. Wading or “kiddie” pools, due to their shallow depth and relatively low water volume, are especially challenging when it comes to pool maintenance, which can lead to disaster when combined with “fecal accidents.”
Since 2001, Georgia’s health department has confirmed seven pool-related outbreaks: one each at a camp, school and hotel; the rest were at subdivision pools or private homes. One of the state’s most famous waterborne incidents occurred in 1998 when 26 children who had visited the White Water Park in Marietta became ill from E. coli bacteria.
Do your part to keep public pools and spas safe. If your neighborhood has a pool, ask about maintenance. Use test strips to measure public pools and teach children pool safety from a young age.
In Gwinnett County alone, inspectors found at least 75 incidences where public pools and spas had not treated the water with chlorine. Hundreds more public pools and spas were closed due to critical violations over the summer – violations that could have put the bathing public at risk for waterborne diseases or infection by bacteria and parasites. Inspectors also found that some businesses were cited repeatedly, raising questions about these businesses’ habits when it comes to water treatment.
Public pools are especially prone to health issues due to the sheer amount of numbers of people who use the pool and, if the pool is used by children, the occurrence of what the pool industry called “fecal accidents.”
As quoted in the AJC:
“If the facility is run by the ignorant or the apathetic, that’s usually a problem,” said Tom Lachocki, chief executive officer of the National Swimming Pool Foundation, a leading trainer of pool operators.
“Fortunately, most of the illnesses one can get in a pool are not catastrophic,” he said. “But you don’t go to the pool to get diarrhea or a rash or sore eyes.”
Waterborne diseases can include gastrointestinal illness, an ailment that many people don’t associate with a trip to the pool or spa. Another risk is infection with the parasite cryptosporidium. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), over the past few years they have been receiving an escalating number of reports of outbreaks associated with recreational water use.
Said the AJC:
For a study published last year, CDC researchers sampled water at 160 Atlanta-area pools to see how many were contaminated with cryptosporidium and another diarrhea-causing parasite, giardia. They found one or both of the parasites in 8 percent of the pools. Although the sample size was small, researchers said the results suggest contamination may be relatively common in some pools.
The CDC did offer up a tip for concerned public swimming pool users – test the water yourself. Pool supply shops and home supply stores sell simple test strips that will change color to show whether the pool’s chemistry is properly calibrated and it is safe for use. These strips are expensive, and an imperative if you plan to swim in a public pool.
The tip is especially relevant to parents. Wading or “kiddie” pools, due to their shallow depth and relatively low water volume, are especially challenging when it comes to pool maintenance, which can lead to disaster when combined with “fecal accidents.”
Since 2001, Georgia’s health department has confirmed seven pool-related outbreaks: one each at a camp, school and hotel; the rest were at subdivision pools or private homes. One of the state’s most famous waterborne incidents occurred in 1998 when 26 children who had visited the White Water Park in Marietta became ill from E. coli bacteria.
Do your part to keep public pools and spas safe. If your neighborhood has a pool, ask about maintenance. Use test strips to measure public pools and teach children pool safety from a young age.
Labels: atlanta, swimming pool safety
In today’s increasingly wired world, it can still be difficult for people to get timely information about emergencies. There were many people who, because they were working, alone with the television off, or similarly incommunicado, did not hear about massive scale tragedies such as the 911 attacks until hours later because they were simply cut off from the world. While sometimes being cut off from a tragedy simply saves you hours of worry, other times failure to get timely information about an emergency can threaten your life. That’s why one Metro Atlanta county has recently updated their reverse 911 system.
Cobb County has adopted the CodeRED emergency alert system. This system could call or text up to 60,000 residents at a time in response to a large scale or life-threatening emergency in their section of the county. The CodeRED system is a vast improvement over Cobb County’s current reverse 911 system, which can only call about 1,200 people per hour on its 20-phone line system. Cobb has never used the old system, which was installed in 2001, to alert its citizens of an emergency.
“It’s next generation communications,” said Ann Flynn, assistant director of Cobb County 911 told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“We’ll be able to text people, which is huge,” she said.
When updated, Cobb’s CodeRED system will be the most up to date emergency notification system in the Metro Atlanta Area. The City of Atlanta and Fulton County share a reverse 911 system. DeKalb County does not yet have a reverse 911 system, but plans to purchase one this year, and Gwinnett County currently has a system, but it can only reach about 1,000 residents per hour and does not have the capability to reach cell phones or send text messages – a severe downfall as more and more people come to rely on cell phones as their primary form of telephone communication.
So what kinds of emergencies will warrant the use of Cobb County’s CodeRED reverse 911 system? Anything from boil-water notices, gas leaks, Amber Alerts for missing children, or SWAT team operations in the neighborhood, says the AJC.
For now, the new Cobb County reverse 911 system will only be programmed to reach landlines, but those who wish to be notified on their cell phones will be encouraged to contact the county this fall and request inclusion.
Kennesaw State University, which is located in Cobb County, implemented a similar emergency response system two years ago. College campuses around the country, taking a lesson from the confusion surrounding the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting, have implemented systems similar to Kennesaw’s, which calls, text messages and emails students in the event of a crisis. Kennesaw State’s emergency warning system came in handy last March when a convict, Chris “Little Houdini” Gay, escaped his handcuffs near the campus and was believed to have wandered onto Kennesaw State grounds. No one was hurt in the incident, and Gay was later recaptured in Florida.
Cobb County has adopted the CodeRED emergency alert system. This system could call or text up to 60,000 residents at a time in response to a large scale or life-threatening emergency in their section of the county. The CodeRED system is a vast improvement over Cobb County’s current reverse 911 system, which can only call about 1,200 people per hour on its 20-phone line system. Cobb has never used the old system, which was installed in 2001, to alert its citizens of an emergency.
“It’s next generation communications,” said Ann Flynn, assistant director of Cobb County 911 told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
“We’ll be able to text people, which is huge,” she said.
When updated, Cobb’s CodeRED system will be the most up to date emergency notification system in the Metro Atlanta Area. The City of Atlanta and Fulton County share a reverse 911 system. DeKalb County does not yet have a reverse 911 system, but plans to purchase one this year, and Gwinnett County currently has a system, but it can only reach about 1,000 residents per hour and does not have the capability to reach cell phones or send text messages – a severe downfall as more and more people come to rely on cell phones as their primary form of telephone communication.
So what kinds of emergencies will warrant the use of Cobb County’s CodeRED reverse 911 system? Anything from boil-water notices, gas leaks, Amber Alerts for missing children, or SWAT team operations in the neighborhood, says the AJC.
For now, the new Cobb County reverse 911 system will only be programmed to reach landlines, but those who wish to be notified on their cell phones will be encouraged to contact the county this fall and request inclusion.
Kennesaw State University, which is located in Cobb County, implemented a similar emergency response system two years ago. College campuses around the country, taking a lesson from the confusion surrounding the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shooting, have implemented systems similar to Kennesaw’s, which calls, text messages and emails students in the event of a crisis. Kennesaw State’s emergency warning system came in handy last March when a convict, Chris “Little Houdini” Gay, escaped his handcuffs near the campus and was believed to have wandered onto Kennesaw State grounds. No one was hurt in the incident, and Gay was later recaptured in Florida.
Labels: atlanta
A couple of weeks ago we reported that Atlanta was recently ranked 4th in the nation for road rage. Now our city has been handed another dubious distinction – 6th worst in the nation when it comes to traffic.
The report came from a study conducted through the Texas Transportation Institute (part of Texas A&M), but if you have ever driven in Atlanta rush hour then the findings surely came as no shock. According to the study, which ranked cities by the amount of hours that drivers had to spend in traffic delays, Atlanta drivers spent 135.3 million hours in traffic delays in 2007 alone. Though that sounds like a huge number, Los Angeles beat us out with a whopping 485 million hours idling. So the next time you are stuck in traffic, remember that it could be worse. You could be in L.A.
Other sobering statistics about Atlanta traffic included that Metro Atlanta drivers also used up 95.9 million more gallons of fuel in 2007 than they would have if it were not for traffic delays and that traffic delays cost us an estimated $3 billion.
But now for the good news, if you can call it good news. The Texas Transportation Institute’s “Urban Mobility Report” is based on data from 2007. A lot has changed since that year. Gas prices have fluctuated wildly and a recession has left many people jobless. Perhaps the results of a different Texas Transportation Institute study should come as no surprise: with fewer people going to work, the ones of us lucky enough to still have jobs have less traffic to contend with. Or as Bernie Fette from the Texas Transportation Institute put it:
"As goes the American economy, so goes traffic. There's fewer people going to work."
While the reasoning does make sense, who would have thought that traffic was a sign of prosperity?
On a more positive note, it seems that high gas prices actually drive people to use public transportation. MARTA, for instance, reported record breaking numbers of riders last summer when U.S. gas prices rose sharply. For awhile there, it seemed like Atlantans were going green. But the inverse also turned out to be true. When gas prices dropped again in the winter months, MARTA ridership declined, leading to budget worries for the transit agency that do not seem to be alleviating anytime soon.
While no statistics were available, there could also be more optimistic reasons for traffic decline in the past two years. As the push to “go green” gains steam, many people are asking their bosses to allow them to partially or fully telecommute. (Do you want to telecommute? Check out this blog post from Web Worker Daily on how to ask your boss to allow you to work remotely.) Other people, while victims of recession layoffs, are starting home businesses. There are whole communities, such as the Unintentional Entrepreneur devoted to people who have made lemonade out of this recession’s lemons. Specifically in Atlanta, people have been flocking to the Clean Air Campaign’s commute alternatives programs. Visit the Clean Air Campaign website for more information on traffic-busting options like carpooling and vanpooling.
How do you feel about Atlanta traffic? Have you noticed it receding in the past couple of years? And do you plan to take personal action to help alleviate Atlanta’s traffic, such as choosing public transit or telecommuting? We want to hear all about it in the comments.
The report came from a study conducted through the Texas Transportation Institute (part of Texas A&M), but if you have ever driven in Atlanta rush hour then the findings surely came as no shock. According to the study, which ranked cities by the amount of hours that drivers had to spend in traffic delays, Atlanta drivers spent 135.3 million hours in traffic delays in 2007 alone. Though that sounds like a huge number, Los Angeles beat us out with a whopping 485 million hours idling. So the next time you are stuck in traffic, remember that it could be worse. You could be in L.A.
Other sobering statistics about Atlanta traffic included that Metro Atlanta drivers also used up 95.9 million more gallons of fuel in 2007 than they would have if it were not for traffic delays and that traffic delays cost us an estimated $3 billion.
But now for the good news, if you can call it good news. The Texas Transportation Institute’s “Urban Mobility Report” is based on data from 2007. A lot has changed since that year. Gas prices have fluctuated wildly and a recession has left many people jobless. Perhaps the results of a different Texas Transportation Institute study should come as no surprise: with fewer people going to work, the ones of us lucky enough to still have jobs have less traffic to contend with. Or as Bernie Fette from the Texas Transportation Institute put it:
"As goes the American economy, so goes traffic. There's fewer people going to work."
While the reasoning does make sense, who would have thought that traffic was a sign of prosperity?
On a more positive note, it seems that high gas prices actually drive people to use public transportation. MARTA, for instance, reported record breaking numbers of riders last summer when U.S. gas prices rose sharply. For awhile there, it seemed like Atlantans were going green. But the inverse also turned out to be true. When gas prices dropped again in the winter months, MARTA ridership declined, leading to budget worries for the transit agency that do not seem to be alleviating anytime soon.
While no statistics were available, there could also be more optimistic reasons for traffic decline in the past two years. As the push to “go green” gains steam, many people are asking their bosses to allow them to partially or fully telecommute. (Do you want to telecommute? Check out this blog post from Web Worker Daily on how to ask your boss to allow you to work remotely.) Other people, while victims of recession layoffs, are starting home businesses. There are whole communities, such as the Unintentional Entrepreneur devoted to people who have made lemonade out of this recession’s lemons. Specifically in Atlanta, people have been flocking to the Clean Air Campaign’s commute alternatives programs. Visit the Clean Air Campaign website for more information on traffic-busting options like carpooling and vanpooling.
How do you feel about Atlanta traffic? Have you noticed it receding in the past couple of years? And do you plan to take personal action to help alleviate Atlanta’s traffic, such as choosing public transit or telecommuting? We want to hear all about it in the comments.
If you live in Atlanta, chances are you have heard all the recent fuss about MARTA.
Earlier this year Atlanta’s public transit agency threatened to shut down service one day per week if they could not gain access to a protected part of their funding. By law, this $63 million surplus, MARTA's capital budget, currently goes toward capital improvements and maintenance of existing equipment and lines. The part of MARTA's funding that keep the transit system running, it's operations budget, was seriously depleted and heading toward it's own kind of train wreck. MARTA’s dual budget system is mandated by the Georgia Legislature as what lawmakers call an effort to ensure that MARTA keeps their buses and trains in top running condition.
According to the transit agency, access to those capital budget funds was the only way that it would be able to continue to operate the same levels and transport its daily load of 500,000 riders per day. When the Georgia Legislature left town without deciding the key question of whether MARTA should have access to its capital budget, MARTA was left in limbo.
Luckily for MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), the agency responsible for planning in the Metro Atlanta region, was able to provide a quick fix by rerouting some federal stimulus money to MARTA’s operating budget. For now, MARTA will continue to run 7 days per week and until 1 am, with only a small fare hike projected for October 2009.
But the question of MARTA dipping into its capital budget to pay for operations expenses is still one worth exploring, especially in light of the recent train collision and derailment that took place in Washington D.C.
During rush hour on June 22, 2009 a moving southbound train collided with a stopped train ahead of it. This resulted in the lead train telescoping (i.e. plowing into the lead train and ending up atop it) and led directly to the deaths of the train operator and eight passengers. Along with the fatalities, several passengers were trapped for hours and 80 people suffered injuries. It has been reported as the worst Metro accident in Washington D.C. history.
Investigators soon found out that the wreck occurred as the result of a faulty signal. An improvement that had taken place just 5 days before on June 17th had resulted in a signal not reliably reporting when a train sat on the track up ahead.
It is just these types of accidents that Georgia lawmakers say they are trying to prevent when they restrict MARTA’s use of its xapital budget.
State Representative Jill Chambers is the head of the Georgia legislative committee that oversees MARTA. She recently told the AJC that the legislators who enacted the dual budget system for MARTA: “realized that political boards, made up of political appointees, didn’t always have the sophistication to know when they were being taken advantage of or induced into not-quite-ethical or maybe even corrupt situations. So the 50-50 split was designed to make sure there would always be funds to repair and maintain the system.”
She also pointed out that the Washington D.C. Metro accident may have come as the result of just such a failure to properly maintain infrastructure.
Chambers also maintains that if MARTA leaders had had the flexibility to dip into capital funds every time operations needs were strained then perhaps MARTA would be in the same situation, where faulty maintenance led to loss of life.
According to MARTA officials, though their new budget covers fiscal year 2010, they will be back in a severe budget crisis by fiscal year 2011 unless they are allowed to dip into their capital budget.
What do you think? Should MARTA be allowed to dip into their capital budget in order to maintain current operations? Or is having funds available for safety more important than maintaining current standards of service? Or maybe you even have a better idea. Sound off in the comments.
Earlier this year Atlanta’s public transit agency threatened to shut down service one day per week if they could not gain access to a protected part of their funding. By law, this $63 million surplus, MARTA's capital budget, currently goes toward capital improvements and maintenance of existing equipment and lines. The part of MARTA's funding that keep the transit system running, it's operations budget, was seriously depleted and heading toward it's own kind of train wreck. MARTA’s dual budget system is mandated by the Georgia Legislature as what lawmakers call an effort to ensure that MARTA keeps their buses and trains in top running condition.
According to the transit agency, access to those capital budget funds was the only way that it would be able to continue to operate the same levels and transport its daily load of 500,000 riders per day. When the Georgia Legislature left town without deciding the key question of whether MARTA should have access to its capital budget, MARTA was left in limbo.
Luckily for MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), the agency responsible for planning in the Metro Atlanta region, was able to provide a quick fix by rerouting some federal stimulus money to MARTA’s operating budget. For now, MARTA will continue to run 7 days per week and until 1 am, with only a small fare hike projected for October 2009.
But the question of MARTA dipping into its capital budget to pay for operations expenses is still one worth exploring, especially in light of the recent train collision and derailment that took place in Washington D.C.
During rush hour on June 22, 2009 a moving southbound train collided with a stopped train ahead of it. This resulted in the lead train telescoping (i.e. plowing into the lead train and ending up atop it) and led directly to the deaths of the train operator and eight passengers. Along with the fatalities, several passengers were trapped for hours and 80 people suffered injuries. It has been reported as the worst Metro accident in Washington D.C. history.
Investigators soon found out that the wreck occurred as the result of a faulty signal. An improvement that had taken place just 5 days before on June 17th had resulted in a signal not reliably reporting when a train sat on the track up ahead.
It is just these types of accidents that Georgia lawmakers say they are trying to prevent when they restrict MARTA’s use of its xapital budget.
State Representative Jill Chambers is the head of the Georgia legislative committee that oversees MARTA. She recently told the AJC that the legislators who enacted the dual budget system for MARTA: “realized that political boards, made up of political appointees, didn’t always have the sophistication to know when they were being taken advantage of or induced into not-quite-ethical or maybe even corrupt situations. So the 50-50 split was designed to make sure there would always be funds to repair and maintain the system.”
She also pointed out that the Washington D.C. Metro accident may have come as the result of just such a failure to properly maintain infrastructure.
Chambers also maintains that if MARTA leaders had had the flexibility to dip into capital funds every time operations needs were strained then perhaps MARTA would be in the same situation, where faulty maintenance led to loss of life.
According to MARTA officials, though their new budget covers fiscal year 2010, they will be back in a severe budget crisis by fiscal year 2011 unless they are allowed to dip into their capital budget.
What do you think? Should MARTA be allowed to dip into their capital budget in order to maintain current operations? Or is having funds available for safety more important than maintaining current standards of service? Or maybe you even have a better idea. Sound off in the comments.
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