The exact cause of the commercial truck accident was unknown at first. What was immediately clear is that the girls’ Honda Civic was struck by an 18-wheeler after they failed to yield at the intersection of Ohio 73 and State Route 73 in Milford Township. Both teens were killed on impact despite wearing safety belts. But now there may be a new factor in the fatal Ohio collision: texting.

According to the Butler’s County Sheriff’s Office, ‘After reviewing a number of factors surrounding this crash, it appears to the investigators that the driver was, in fact, texting on her cell phone in very close proximity to the actual time of the crash.’

Auto accidents that result from driving and texting have become a widespread issue across the US. To combat this deadly trend many states have banned texting while driving – Ohio is not one of them.

According to the Ohio State Patrol between 2009 and 2011 there were 31,231 accidents in Ohio involving distracted drivers included 74 deaths. Ohio doesn’t currently have any statewide restrictions on texting or cell phone use. A new bill, however, has been sent to the governor that would make Ohio the 38th state to ban text messaging while driving.

Distracted driving is dangerous enough by itself, but when the accidents involve a large commercial truck, more often than not, it results in serious injuries or death.

In the accident near Cincinnati that claimed the two teens, another vehicle ended up involved and the driver was rushed to University Hospital where they were treated for non-life threatening injuries. The driver of the semi was not hurt at all.

The crash is still under investigation.

Southern Ohio Commercial Truck Accident Lawyer

If you or someone you love has been the victim of a trucking accident, you’ll need the help of an experienced Commercial Truck Accident Lawyer. Big Truck Attorney Barry Rothchild knows all about commercial trucking lawsuits. He’s been serving accident victims in Cincinnati, Green Township, and throughout Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky for years, and can help you and your family get the financial compensation you need after your wreck.

After you’ve been injured in a commercial trucking accident, contact Barry now for a free, no obligation case review and let him get started today!

Source. Handsfreeinfo.com, ‘http://handsfreeinfo.com/ohio-cell-phone-laws-legislation,’ May 4, 2012.

Source. ONN, ‘http://www.onntv.com/content/stories/2012/05/04/story-onn-teens-fatal-crash.html,’ May 4, 2012.

Source. WLWT, ‘http://www.wlwt.com/r/31061578/detail.html,’ May 14, 2012.

Sunday’s marathon wasn’t her first (she won the Flying Pig in 2005), but considering her condition a year and a half earlier, running it was an amazing feat of self-determination. On a sunny day in October of 2010, she left the house for a typical bike ride through Anderson Township. But everything changed when a car failed to yield to her at an intersection and she violently slammed into it. Even though she was wearing a helmet, the impact still left her with life-threatening injuries.

A University Hospital Air Care helicopter soon responded to the scene of the accident, and in a twist of fate one of the emergency responders recognized the Cincinnati crash victim as his wife. He became his wife’s doctor and caretaker and was by her side throughout her long recovery.

The young woman had to undergo several majors operations to mend her shattered body and repair the dangerous aneurysm. Two days after she was sent home from the hospital, she was dealt more trauma when the damaged artery in her brain ruptured again, sending her back to the hospital.

Determined to not let her injuries rob her of the things she’d enjoyed before the bike accident, the 29-year-old worked out diligently and began to improve more and more each day. Her recovery was itself a marathon, one of determination and courage, aided every step of the way by a loving husband.

The finishing line of the Flying Pig Marathon was only one marker toward the woman’s plans for her new lease on life. She’s back working full-time at Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital and will complete her residency in December before going into primary pediatric care and sports medicine.

She plans to tackle the Boston Marathon next.

Cincinnati, OH Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

Whether you’re riding a bike or just walking down the street, if you’ve been hurt in a Cincinnati pedestrian accident you’ll want the help of an experienced Cincinnati Injury Lawyer.  Attorney Barry Rothchild has years of experience representing people injured in pedestrian accidents throughout Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky.

Getting hit by a moving vehicle can be devastating both physically and financially. Barry knows the law, he knows pedestrian accident lawsuits, and he knows how to help.

Ask Barry now for a free, no obligation case review, and get the help you need.

Source. Cincinnati.com, “http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120503/NEWS01/305030045/Alison-Delgado-seeks-put-accident-behind-her-Flying-Pig,” Mark Curnutte, May 4, 2012.

Source. Cincinnati.com, “http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20120506/SPT/305060075/For-Delgado-Flying-Pig-new-inspring-chapter?odyssey=nav%7Chead,” Barry M. Horstman, May 6, 2012.

According to the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, the 33-year-old driver from Union, KY was heading south on North Bend Road in Burlington, KY when he failed to see the bus slowing in front of him. He hit the bus, crumpling his car from the hood to the front seat. Incredibly despite the severity of the accident and the fact that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt, the Union, KY man survived.

Even more incredibly, he only ended up with some injuries to his face and pain in his neck and hip. He was still transported by air to University Hospital in Cincinnati, but his injuries were not considered to be life threatening.

The Stephens Elementary bus was driven by a 61-year-old resident of Florence, KY and walked away from the wreck without injury. Luckily at the time of the accident no children were on the bus.

A 2010 statewide safety analysis in Ohio found an average of 10 crashes involving school buses occur each and every school day. The Ohio Department of Transportation reported that last year there were 1,856 wrecks involving buses, which works out to 10 crashes each school day when you take into account that school is only in session for 182 days.

ODOT’s reports that it is most often a driver’s lack of attention that causes Ohio bus accidents — failure to yield and following too close being the most common. To combat this trend they’ve unrolled a simple reminder of ‘ABC – Always Be Cautious.’

Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky Bus Accident Lawyer

Ask attorney Barry Rothchild what he knows about bus accident injury lawsuits. If you’ve suffered an injury in an accident caused by another person’s negligence, you need the support of an experienced personal injury lawyer. Barry Rothchild fights for the people of Cincinnati, Green Township, and all across Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky,

Contact the Rothchild Law Office when you need help dealing with insurance companies or holding someone accountable for negligence that caused you or a loved one harm.

Ask Barry Rothchild for a free consultation today!

Source. Ohio.gov, “http://www.dot.state.oh.us/news/Pages/ODOTasksDriverstoRememberBack-to-SchoolABCAlwaysBeCautious.aspx,” August 08, 2010.

Not long after the wreck, she was married and for almost four decades has not been able to physically speak with her husband. ‘Most of my family has never really heard my original voice apart from my mother,’ the woman says. The Cincinnati woman seemed accepting of the fact that she might never again be able to speak above a whisper.

Then one day while the 52-year-old was shopping a stranger overheard her talking and handed her a card with the name and number of Dr. Sid Khosla, an Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist at University Hospital.

Dr. Khosla studied engineering at MIT before entering into medicine. He would go on to team with another University of Cincinnati professor and together they applied aerospace engineering technology to how wind influences a person’s capability to speak.

The Cincinnati woman immediately contacted the doctor. He told her that within seven operations he could give her back her voice. She agreed and 35 years after her devastating car accident the woman could once again talk.

Her voice, which is still slightly hoarse, will recover over time. After decades of silence the woman is overjoyed as she’s now able to be loud, clear, and finally able to express herself. Her husband is thrilled, too. But the woman jokes, ‘He used to say he almost had a perfect wife, because I couldn’t talk, but now I’m getting back at him.’

Cincinnati Car Accident Lawyer

If you’ve been injured in a Cincinnati car wreck or if you’ve lost a loved one in an auto accident contact the Rothchild Law Office for free legal advice.

Attorney Barry Rothchild has years of experience representing clients injured in car accidents throughout Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. He understands the hardships you are facing and will help you through the legal process as he pursues the money you deserve.

If you have legal questions about your Cincinnati car accident, Ask Barry Now!

Source. Fox19, “http://www.fox19.com/story/17406511/after-30-years-of-not-being-able-to-speak-one-woman-finds-her-voice?hpt=us_bn6,” Dave Culbreth, April 12, 2012.

Source. Mail Online, “http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2130177/Be-careful-wish–man-tells-wife-lost-voice-33-years-better-talk.html,” Daniel Bates, April 15, 2012.

Source. NPR, “http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/04/19/135546492/after-35-years-woman-regains-her-voice-now-she-has-so-much-to-say,” Mark Memmott, April 16, 2012.

A sergeant from the Ohio State Highway Patrol has stated, ‘It would have been the same thing if anybody would have been driving – not necessarily just a deputy.  It’s a dark intersection, the roadway is dark there’s no real businesses here that light up the area, and I think this would’ve happened to anybody.  It just so happens it happened to a deputy.’

The Harrison Township deputy was making his normal rounds, no lights or sirens, when he reports that the woman ran out in front of his cruiser.  The devastating collision cracked the windshield of the cruiser and set off the airbags, which sent the deputy to Good Samaritan Hospital where he was treated for minor injuries and released.

When emergency crews arrived, the woman was lying in the road and pronounced dead at the scene.  When accidents occur involving a police officer, it’s required that another officer is called to the scene to right the report in order to assure there’s no bias.

The investigation is ongoing and state troopers believe alcohol may have played a part in the wreck  but that has yet to be confirmed by autopsy.  Witnesses report that the woman may have been at a bar earlier in the evening and had been walking back and forth across the street.  And it had been reported earlier to Montgomery County Dispatch Center that someone had been crossing the road in the area prior to the 12:11 am accident.

Southern Ohio Wrongful Death Lawyer

Accidental deaths can occur in car accidents, 18-wheeler accidents, motorcycle accidents, and countless other tragic ways.  If your loved one’s death was the result of another person’s negligent or intentional act, a personal injury lawyer can assist you in filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

If you need an experienced Ohio wrongful death lawyer to represent you after the accidental death of a loved one, contact Rothchild Law Office.  They treat all their clients in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky with individual care and respect.

Contact the Rothchild Law Office for a free, no obligation case review.

The accident shut down three lanes of the highway Sunday night for several hours while emergency crews responded. Police are still investigating the accident to find out whether or not alcohol was a factor in the crash.

The Florence motorcyclist was rushed by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Police have reported that at the time of the motorcycle accident the biker was not wearing a helmet.

Kentucky Motorcycle Helmet Laws

The Universal Helmet Law was repealed in Kentucky in 1998. Currently, if you’re riding a motorcycle in Kentucky you only have to wear a helmet if you’re under 21-years-old or if you’ve been licensed for under a year.

In Kentucky, in the two years before the law was repealed, 6.4 registered motorcycle riders out of 10,000 were killed in an accident. In the two years after the repeal it jumped to 8.8 motorcyclists killed out of 10,000 – a 37.5% increase.

Whether the state requires you wear a helmet or not, there’s no debate that not wearing a helmet greatly increases you chances of being injured or killed in a motorcycle crash. According to the CDC, helmets “reduce the risk of head injury by 69%.” They continue stating, “an unhelmeted rider is 40% more likely to die from a head injury than someone wearing a helmet.”

Northern Kentucky Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

If you’ve been injured in a motorcycle wreck or if you’ve lost a loved one in a motorcycle accident, contact the Rothchild Law for free legal advice.

Attorney Barry Rothchild has years of experience representing clients injured in motorcycle accidents throughout Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio. He understands the hardships you are facing and will help you through the legal process as he pursues the money you deserve.

If you have legal questions about your Northern Kentucky motorcycle accident, Ask Barry Now!

Semi-trucks are a constant on Ohio highways. Unfortunately, so are big truck accidents. Drivers are often under incredible pressure to deliver freight on time. That means pushing the limits as to how much time they spend on the road and how little time they spend resting. This leads to 80,000lb trucks barreling across cities like Cincinnati with exhausted drivers behind the wheel.

Fatigue can have a devastating effect on a driver’s judgment. It can slow their reaction time and dull their vision, making them much more susceptible to accidents. These accidents, which usually involve smaller passenger cars, often lead to serious injury – even death.

Regulations have long been in place to prevent tired truck drivers from being on the road. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has established rules that are applied in Ohio and across the US including limiting drive time to 11 hours a day.

But the FMCSA felt drivers were constantly driving the maximum amount of hours each day, every day, resulting in sleep-deprived conditions and many more truck accidents.

To combat these accidents new regulations have been put into place that will reduce the maximum weekly driving hours from 80 to 72. The new rules would also require at least one period of 34 hours a week of consecutive non-driving. An added provision would include that in those 34 hours the driver must rest between 1:00am to 5:00am on two successive days.

Challenges to New Truck Accident Prevention Regulations

Not everyone is pleased by the new regulations. The American Trucking Association (ATA) has filed a petition against the FMCSA’s new laws. They claim that cost of compliance would be too high, and there’s not enough evidence to prove that these new regulations would even prevent trucking accidents.

The Department of Transportation, however, cites driver fatigue as one of the reasons that deaths resulting from big truck accidents rose 9% in 2010.

The ATA intend to continue to challenge the new regulations that will go into effect in July 2013 in hopes of keeping roads safer in Ohio and across America.

Cincinnati Truck Accident Lawyer

If you’ve been hurt in a Cincinnati semi-truck accident, contact the Rothchild Law Office today. Attorney Barry Rothchild will protect your rights and fight to get you the money you deserve.

The ambulance was driven by a 21-year-old Chillicothe resident with a 72-year-old passenger, also a Chillicothe resident – both were pronounced dead at the scene. The 50-year-old driver of the lumber truck was transported to Adena Regional Medical Center where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

The tragic accident in Green Township involved a non-emergency ambulance used as a wheel chair transport, but accidents involving ambulances responding to emergencies also unfortunately occur across Ohio.

The state has set several standards for drivers of emergency vehicles, including fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars. By law, emergency vehicles are not required to stop at red lights and stop signs when on emergency calls, but it does state that they must “slow down as necessary for safety to traffic.” Several other roadside laws don’t apply to emergency vehicles when responding to calls; they’re allowed to travel the wrong way down one-way streets as well as cross double yellow lines.

Traffic laws they’re not exempt from include those that apply to school buses. Ambulances are still required to stop for school buses displaying caution lights and extending their stop sign. The emergency vehicle must wait until children are safely out of the way before proceeding.

Despite an ambulance’s exemption from certain traffic laws, the driver is still required to operate their vehicle with “due regard for the safety of all persons using the street or highway.”

If proven that the emergency vehicle operator was at fault in an accident, they can be held liable even if responding to an emergency. The injured motorist or surviving family of a wrongful death can seek financial compensation, and if the driver’s misconduct was severe, they can face criminal charges and potential jail time.

In the unfortunate case of the fatal accident in Green Township, no fault has been established, and the case remains under investigation.

A Cyclones hockey player smashes into the boards.

A Reds pitcher takes a line drive straight to the head.

Playing sports increases your risk for head injury, particularly concussions, and a new study at the University of Michigan plans to follow athletes from the time they’re in high school through possible professional careers to determine the long-term effects of head injuries.

“There has been considerable attention paid to concussion recently, by the media and others, spurred by reports of National Football League players, hockey players — people who have had a long history of contact — having a very particular kind of dementing illness,” said one of the researchers, associate professor of neurology Jeffrey Kutcher, M.D., in a university press release.

But not only professional athletes are at risk for concussions. With spring just around the corner, Americans are taking advantage of the beautiful weather. If you’re heading outside to play sports or take a ride on your motorcycle, one of the easiest ways to protect yourself from a head injury is by wearing a helmet. Follow these tips from the Mayo Clinic to ensure you and your family are as safe as possible:

Check for a seal of approval. Organizations like the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), American National Standards Institute (ANSI) or Snell Memorial Foundation approve safe helmet designs.

Make sure your helmet fits correctly. If you can move the helmet more than an inch in any direction, be it front to back or side to side, it’s not safe. Use the sizing pads in the helmet to make it more secure. Those with long hair may want to buy a helmet with a specific port for ponytails.

Even if the helmet straps block your vision just a little bit, don’t buy it. Find a helmet that allows you to see everything going on around you and allows other motorists to see you. Brightly colored helmets are the best, and you may be able to find one that comes with lights or reflective strips.

Fasten the chin strap below your chin, not to the side.

Of course, not all head injuries can be prevented. If you or a loved one has suffered a head injury in the Cincinnati area and you need help dealing with your insurance company, attorney Barry Rothchild can help.

“[The insurance company wants] to make sure that they resolve the claim as quickly as possible at the most minimal cost,” Barry said. “Don’t trust the insurance company, because they’re not going to give you a fair deal.”

For more information and FREE LEGAL ADVICE, contact Barry today!

The student was hit by a truck on Feb. 28 as he, three fellow international students and an ELS Language Centers employee stood on the corner.

Police told 9 News that a man lost control of his pickup truck, veering off the road and hitting exchange student. His vehicle then struck a pole, which hit the ELS employee in the head and left him in critical condition.

FOX 19 reported that both men were taken to the UC hospital, where the student was in stable condition as of the following day. Two other international students were treated at the scene for minor injuries, according to 9 News.

The driver had been wearing a seatbelt and was not injured in the crash, FOX 19 reported. Police do not believe alcohol or speed contributed to the accident, though the language barrier is making their investigation more difficult.

But UC students and staff told 9 News the intersection is known to be dangerous. A man who works at the campus ministry organization Edge House, said he has seen several accidents there in the past few weeks.

“I’m often trying to position myself around one of those poles just in case somebody comes whipping around trying to beat the light,” he told 9 News.

A fellow student agreed, telling 9 News, “This intersection is very busy and you have to look both ways. You have to make sure that the drivers are being as cautious as well.”

A member of the CUF community council said area councils have met with city officials to discuss making the intersection more pedestrian-friendly. She told 9 News that Cincinnati’s traffic and engineering department plans to redesign the traffic islands and widen the right turn lane from MLK to Clifton.

Driver error is the top cause of auto accidents in Ohio, and if you or a loved one has been injured in a pedestrian accident like this, personal injury attorney Barry Rothchild can help you get the settlement you deserve from your insurance company.

“I want you to get the medical care and treatment that you need to get better and to keep me informed of what you’re doing,” Rothchild said. “Your [job] is to get treatment and get better, mine is to do everything else.”

For more information, call 513-579-8900.