This condition was first diagnosed in 1819 by Rene Laënnec, the inventor of the stethoscope. His invention was used in the initial diagnosis. Sir William Osler researched the disease in greater detail during the late 1800s. Ironically, it is suspected that Osler died from complications from bronchiectasis that was undiagnosed.

High resolution CT scans along with a review of the patient’s clinical history are used in the diagnosis of this condition. Significant patterns in the CT scan that can lead to a positive diagnosis include “tree-in-bud” abnormalities and cysts that have definable borders. Bronchiectasis can also be diagnosed through a clinical history of frequent respiratory infections along with sputum cultures and blood work.

The treatment of this disease involves controlling the subsequent infections, resolving airway obstructions, controlling bronchial secretions and the preventing of further complications. To this end, the extensive use of antibiotics will be indicated to prevent infections. Accumulated fluid will be eliminated with chest-specific physiotherapy and postural drainage. Surgery can also be used to treat bronchiectasis through the removal of obstructions that would lead to a progression of the disease.

Sputum production and airway constriction can be reduced through the use of inhaled steroid therapy. This therapy will also prevent the progression of the disease. The use of inhalers can also reduce inflammation and by clearing the airways, also reduce the appearance of infections.

Therapies that are used in combination, such as corticosteroid inhalers and long acting bronchodilators may also reduce inflammation, reduce sputum production and help clear the airways. These inhalers can come in different medicinal forms that will be “balanced” by the physician.

Please note that this article is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.

More information on Social Security benefits for bronchiectasis patients may be obtained by visiting the website of Attorney Gerard Lynch, representing Social Security cases in Corpus Christi and throughout the state of Texas.

The Motor Carrier Safety Rating is given by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). It is an evaluation of each interstate commercial motor carrier company. There are three different safety ratings that a carrier can earn.

Satisfactory: The carrier has in place adequate safety management controls that meet Part
385.5 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations

Conditional: The carrier does not have in place adequate safety management controls that
meet Part 385.5 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations

Unsatisfactory: The carrier does not have in place adequate safety management controls
which has resulted in occurrences listed in Part 385.5 of the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Regulations

Generally a motor carrier who received an unsatisfactory rating is not allowed to operate commercial motor vehicles. If the rating is final, the carrier is put out of business. If a carrier continues to operate they are in violation and subject to penalties.

The FMCSA conducts an onsite compliance review of a carrier and its operations and determines the rating. A safety rating is dependent on several factors. These include financial responsibility, drivers’ hours of service, maintenance and inspection, driver qualification, hazardous materials, and accidents. They may inspect the carrier’s safety and transportation records.

A compliance check can be conducted for several reasons. A carrier may want to improve its current rating. The FMCSA may have received complaints about the carrier’s operations. There may have been some safety issues including accidents. It is possible that the compliance check can lead to enforceable action by the FMCSA.

The general public is allowed to look up a trucking company’s current Motor Carrier Safety Rating. The information is part of the SAFER System, the Safety and Fitness Electronic Records System. There is also other safety information including carriers of hazardous materials. There is a fee required for some information, but a general review of a carrier is free.

This is a database that victims of a truck accident may want to research to check on the trucking company involved in their accident. It may also be a source for some truck accident attorneys as they work to build their case.
It may also be a good resource for a business that needs a safe carrier company to transport their product. They can use this site to see if a company they are considering is rated satisfactory. Other businesses may want to check the rating of their current carrier. They may want to change carriers if their current trucking company has an unsatisfactory rating. This could mean that the carrier is not operating safely and may be going out of business soon. A business that needs reliable transportation may need to switch to a carrier with a higher rating.

This article is on intended as legal advice.

For additional information: Please visit Gordon & Elias, L.L.P - Midland, TX Accident and Injury Attorneys

If you are unable to work, you will receive approximately 2/3 of your income. These payments are tax-free. This will kick in after you have had to miss a few days of work due to a work related injury and illness.

Some people become injured to the point that they can no longer work. These people may be eligible for long-term benefits. What you are paid will depend on the extent of your injuries. If your disability is permanent, you will want to contact workers’ compensation right away. Because long-term benefits are complex, the may take awhile to be processed.

Some people experience problems with their employers and under many circumstances you can sue the employer. This is where an experience attorney in the area of Florida personal injury law will come in. You can bypass the worker’s compensation if you sustained an injury due to reckless or intentional behavior. You can file a claim for pain and suffering, punitive damages, and mental aguish.

If an employer tries to stop you from filing a workers’ compensation claim wit threats or in general, immediately report it to workers’ compensation. At that point, get a good attorney to help you with personal injury law.

This article should not be construed as legal advice.

Supplementary Website: Personal Injury Law Firm Abrahamson & Uiterwyk. Serving clients in Clearwater, Florida.

• Temporary or permanent ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
• Needing to turn up the volume on the TV and other audio equipment
• Higher pitched sounds becoming muffled
• Trouble following conversations, especially in crowded situations
• People needing to repeat themselves to you often

Major hearing loss can also occur through direct head injuries. Auto accidents and acts of violence are the most common, but any direct blow to the head can cause either temporary or permanent hearing loss. In car accidents those safety air bags can cause both conductive and sensor neural damage.
While airbags are great for saving lives they are also often responsible for hearing damage. Damage from airbags can occur in two ways. If the side of your head is hit with a direct blow from an airbag it can ‘dislocate’ the small bones in the middle ear causing conductive deafness. The explosion of an airbag can also cause a ruptured ear drum. Airbags create a sound pressure level of over 170 decibels which is higher than a shot gun and a jet engine.

If you have been in an auto accident these are symptoms that could indicate ear damage (as can the symptoms above)

• Bleeding from the ear
• Vertigo/ dizziness
• Facial droop
• Numbness on one side
• Blurred vision
• Slurred speech
• Nausea and vomiting
• Trouble standing/ general clumsiness or any balance issues

See a doctor if you have any of these conditions and be sure to contact a personal injury lawyer if you feel someone else may be either entirely or partly responsible for your injury.

Legal Site: Texas Lawyer Kris Barber. Representing clients in the Dallas metroplex.

If you have been injured in a slip and fall accident that was caused by someone else’s negligence, there are certain steps you should take to protect yourself. Determining who is at fault for the dangerous condition that lead to your slip and fall is the first step.

Personal Negligence
If you have been injured in a slip and fall, first you must determine if the accident was caused by your own negligence, or if a dangerous condition existed that caused your injuries. For example:

Would a reasonably careful person have noticed the dangerous condition?
Was there a legitimate reason for you to be near the dangerous condition?
Were you distracted or acting recklessly in a way that made it more likely for you to be injured?

If Someone Else Was Negligent
If the slip and fall was caused by something other than your carelessness, some information you will want to take note of includes:

What caused you to fall
Whether or not there was any notification about the unsafe condition
Any witnesses that saw the fall or the unsafe condition that caused the fall
Description of the area where the slip and fall occurred, such as the walking surface, the kind of lighting in the vicinity or any weather conditions that created, or made worse, the unsafe circumstance
Any acknowledgement by the owner, or possibly an employee, that they were aware the condition existed
Take a photograph of the area to document the unsafe condition

As soon as possible after the slip and fall you should notify the owner of the property. If it is a commercial property notify the owner or an employee. You should get a copy of any accident report regarding the fall. If the fall occurred on residential property you should notify the owner in writing.
If you were injured, you should seek medical attention right away. You should also take pictures of any injuries to document them. Keep records of all medical treatment you receive. A personal injury attorney can help you to determine if you have a valid premises liability case, and can help to investigate who is at fault for your injuries.

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Please contact an attorney in your local area for more information about premises liability law.
Further Legal Resources: The Law Offices of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, PA. Serving clients in Florida.

We should be prepared to both deal with an emergency, and to know what to do when an accident does occur.

Take a first aid course so you can be ready to assist others if injury should occur. Then have your accident kit ready in your car. You should have:

• A first aid kit
• Safety triangle or cones (these are optional but can be very useful
• A pen
• Paper
• Recorded details of your own and your families medical information (allergies etc)
• Your insurance company’s phone number
• A camera or cell phone with a camera (never be tempted to talk or text while driving though)
• Your ‘to do at an accident’ list on a card. Accidents are frightening and it is easy to forget things in a moment of stress and panic.

Additional Legal Source: The Law Offices of Michael Lowe. Serving all of Texas.

Sporting injuries, falls, objects falling on the head and car accidents are the most common form of head injuries that occur. Head injuries can affect the scalp, skull, and/or brain. Sometimes symptoms are obvious and other times they are not.

If anyone of any age has taken a fall do not move them immediately as they may well have suffered a head injury. Falls tend to result in both skull fractures and concussions. Heavy objects falling on heads can do the same. It is not true that all serious head injuries result in a loss of consciousness and some injuries take longer to develop any symptoms at all.

If a skull fracture has occurred there can sometimes be a soft feel to the skull where it has depressed. Hairline fractures though can be harder to ascertain. There are two kinds of head injuries, open and closed. A fracture to the skull is considered to be an open head injury even if the fracture is linear. Hairline fractures will often heal of their own accord but it is important to be aware that it takes a lot of force to fracture a human skull and other damage may well have occurred. Anything that pierces the skull is also an open head injury.

Legal Tools: The Law Offices of Kristopher Barber. Serving clients throughout Texas.

Bad visibility can mean two different things. The first definition refers to the visibility of the truck. Many trucks are hard to see in the dark, especially along poorly lit roads and highways. Car drivers, often suffering fatigue at night, do not see the trucks until the moment before a collision. Some car drivers do not see a truck that is in an adjoining lane, and may try to move over in front of the larger vehicle.

The US federal government addressed this problem in 1999, when they enacted a law that requires all tractor-trailers to have reflectors that outline the lower edges of their trailers. They believe this will prevent car drivers from accidently driving under a truck or driving into the side of a truck. Many truck drivers also have a series of lights and reflectors all over their trailers so they are well lit and highly visible.

Another way to define bad visibility refers to the truck driver’s ability to see cars. Most car drivers are taught to stay out of the truck driver’s blind spots. These are the areas around and behind the rig where the truck driver cannot see. If a car driver drives along the side of a truck, they risk becoming invisible. The truck driver may move to that lane, believing that it is empty, and hit or run the car off the road.

Likewise it is dangerous to drive directly behind a truck. Some car drivers do this in the belief that they can get better mileage by following closely behind a large truck. Whether or not there is any validity to that claim, it is still extremely dangerous. The truck driver probably cannot see the car, and has no idea how close they are to the back of the truck. If they slow or stop, the car will slam into the back of the trailer.

This kind of driving also reduces the visibility of the car driver. If they are driving close behind a truck, they cannot see down the road. They often are only seeing a small amount on either side of the truck. They have no way of knowing if the traffic ahead is slowing down or if there is some kind of hazard in the road. This prevents them from anticipating problems and making changes to avoid accidents.

According to most laws, in the first example the truck driver is liable if their vehicle is not properly lit to increase visibility. In the second example, the car driver would be liable if they are driving too close for safety. These are just two of examples of bad visibility causing truck accidents. There are many other causes, including overloaded trucks and poorly maintained windows and lights, or misdirected mirrors. All drivers must be concerned with good visibility in order to avoid many unnecessary truck and car accidents.

This article should not be construed as legal advice.

Related Legal Source: If you are an accident victim due to a truck driver’s poor visibility or would like additional information regarding truck accidents laws please visit the attorneys at Gordon & Elias, LLP.

Dram Shop Laws
In the 18th century, businesses in England sold spoonfuls of gin, called a dram. Dram shop laws refer to holding businesses accountable for any injury or damages caused by an intoxicated patron or employee. Dram shop laws differ from state to state, but generally the business or host must have known, or should have known that the patron was intoxicated and therefore posed a danger to themselves or to others. These laws were put into place to provide incentive for businesses to stop serving alcohol to intoxicated people even though it means an end to sales to that individual.
Social Host Liability
In states, where social hosts don’t fall under the dram shop laws, a social host is generally someone who provides alcohol as an act of hospitality, not for commercial gain. There are also differences in state law depending on if the alcohol was served to a minor or if the host is an employer and the event is considered a business event.

Serving alcohol to a minor is always illegal. Most states include laws that state that social hosts can be held liable for the actions of intoxicated minors. In some cases another minor can be held accountable for furnishing the alcohol, or the parents of the minor can be held accountable even if they weren’t in the home when the alcohol was consumed.

According to a DUI and criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, if you are convicted of DUI while a minor, who is fifteen years of age or younger is in the vehicle the court will sentence you pursuant to the guidelines established for a Class 6 Felony.

When it’s an employer hosting an event for employees, the employer host has to be especially careful because of the nature of the employer/employee relationship. An employee may feel compelled to attend an office party more than another type of social event.

Steps to Protect Yourself from Social Host Liability

There are steps you can take to help prevent social host liability because of your guests actions:

• Ensure that no minors are served
• Host your event at a bar or restaurant where the employees have been trained to stop serving intoxicated individuals
• Don’t provide an open bar, if individuals are responsible for purchasing their own drinks then you have not furnished the alcohol
• Provide free taxis to your guests

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Please contact an attorney in your local area for more information about DUI/DWI Law.
Related Legal Pages: Dallas Attorney Michael Lowe. Serving clients throughout Texas.

Truck accidents are treated differently than other motor vehicle accidents. One often wonders who the liable parties are. It is not just the truck driver that can be held liable. Other parties can be involved such as the company that the driver is employed through. In very negligent cases, the trailer manufacturer, designer, or any manufacturer of the part that was defective can be fund at fault. Many times, it is the party that is responsible for the vehicle’s maintenance.

Your attorney will be the one who will consider every source when trying to figure out liability. The trucking companies will usually always have a law firm available 24/7 to visit the scene of the accident. This is a very large advantage to the trucking companies. Victims usually will not have such quick access to a truck accident attorney. Many times the victim is taken to the hospital, which removes them from the scene where the evidence is collected.

Trucking companies know that they have the advantage if getting their own attorney and investigators to the scene. Trucking companies have substantial resources. This is why the right attorney is vital to your case. Trucking companies hire their own attorney and investigators that will not have your interests in mind. Make sure you attorney has the knowledge and financial resources to properly investigate your claim. Trucking companies also know that many victims can’t afford high-end attorney fees. This is often due to loss of work, medical bills, and so on. This is exactly why most truck accident attorneys work on a contingency basis. This means that a fee is not necessary until you win your case.

The victim does not pay Court expenses until any money is recovered. This is usually because they did not follow guidelines that were mandated for how long a driver can drive and maintenance checks. It is very convenient for the trucking companies since they have control of the documentation. A truck accident attorney can often recognize inconsistencies that have been produced by the trucking company during the litigation process.

Make sure to hire an experience attorney that knows how truck accident law works. They will help you fight through the corporations and insurance companies that are fighting hard against your interests. These companies have been known to use whatever means possible to discredit the victim. It is imperative that your attorney know every law forwards and backwards in order to make sure your rights are protected.

This is not legal advice.

Legal Information: Truck Accident Attorneys At Law Gordon & Elias. Providing legal support nationwide and in Tennessee.