Results tagged “amputated”

An unidentified NYPD narcotics officer had one of his legs amputated below the calf last night after getting pinned by a car that jumped the curb during an accident in Brooklyn. The plainclothes officer, a five and a half year NYPD veteran, was loading drug bust prisoners into a van at about 5 p.m. at the intersection of Avenue U and East 34th Street in Marine Park, when two vehicles traveling opposite directions slammed into each other and jumped the curb. The cop was rushed to Kings County Hospital and is listed in serious but stable condition. No one else was hurt in the incident, and according to 1010 WINS, neither of the drivers have been charged and police have ruled this an accident.

Mayor Bloomerg (pictured) expressed dismay yesterday over a jury's recent decision to award $2.3 million to 25-year-old Dustin Dibble, who lost part of his right leg under a subway train after falling drunk onto the tracks in 2006. Hizzoner told reporters, "I wasn't sitting in the courtroom. I wasn't on the jury. But on the face of it, you'd think there's a personal responsibility here. And I think a lot of us should be a little more responsible for our own behavior." There he goes again with the responsibility lecture. First, nobody's allowed to smoke, then we all have to confront our calorie intake, now we can't sue the city when we get hurt ourselves stumbling around blotto? If the Mayor doesn't want New Yorkers to drink to excess, shouldn't he just ban booze? Otherwise, how will we know right from wrong? Also, as Dibble's lawyer tells the Post, "This was a preventable accident. The operator himself said he could have stopped." But he didn't because he mistook Dibble for a trash heap. Meanwhile, the Daily News notes that NYC Transit paid out nearly $50 million last year in personal injury lawsuits brought by its riders, a jump of nearly 40% from 2004.

Dustin Dibble says he was so drunk he doesn't remember being run over by an N train in the Union Square subway station in April of 2006, but his intoxicated condition didn't stop a jury from awarding him $2.3 million last week. Dibble had part of his right leg amputated after the incident, and he says he'll use the money to cover his medical expenses. The jury agreed with lawyer Andrew Smiley's contention that the motorman had plenty of time to stop the train when he spotted Dibble, 25, lying on the tracks 180 feet away, but he kept moving because "he thought it was garbage." Smiley tells the News, "They're not allowed to hit you just because you're drunk and on the track. That doesn't give the Transit Authority a free pass." The payout is double what the MTA had to cough up in 2006, when a Queens man sued after losing his legs below the knees during a drunken romp on the 7 train tracks. And last year a Columbia University study confirmed the obvious: drinking and riding the subway is stupid, unless you're willing to trade your legs for some big cash moneys.