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Tag: injuries
Tiki torches sold at BJ’s recalled after reports of burn injuries
MARLBORO – About 90,000 tiki torches sold at BJ’s Wholesale Club are being recalled because they can break open or fall while lit.
A notice posted Thursday by the Consumer Product Safety Commission says the recall affects 72-inch Berkley Jensen Citronella Tiki Torches that were made in India. The torch tops are copper-plated, nickel-plated, black or gray with a fiberglass wick.
Burn injuries reported with recalled tiki torches
So far, there have been nine reports of the tiki torch tops breaking or falling off, and in two instances people suffered burn injuries.
BJ’s says anyone who has the recalled torches should “immediately stop” using them.
Recalled tiki torches sold at all BJ’s stores
BJ’s says the torches were sold exclusively at all of its locations nationwide and online at BJs.com between Jan. 2015 and Nov. 2023 for about $13. There are BJ’s stores in 17 states, including Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Anyone who bought a recalled torch can get their money back.
“Consumers should destroy and dispose of or return the tiki torches (with the fuel reservoir empty) to BJ’s Wholesale Club to receive a refund,” the CPSC says.
Man who escaped Hawaii jail and was struck by a vehicle dies from his injuries
LIHUE, Hawaii — A man who escaped from a Hawaii jail and was struck by a vehicle soon after died Thursday from his injuries, authorities said.
Matthew J. Ornellas Jr. was seriously hurt in a hit-and-run after he fled from Kauai Community Correctional Center just after 1 a.m. last Friday, the Hawaii Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
He scaled a fence with razor wire, and correctional officers gave chase but lost sight of him when he entered a dense brush area, officials said.
Soon afterward they heard a loud sound from the road and found him lying next to Kuhio Highway, about 100 yards (90 meters) away from the jail. An ambulance transported him to a hospital, where he remained in serious condition and in custody. His condition deteriorated and he was pronounced dead Thursday.
Ornellas, 33, was a minimum-security inmate serving time for a drug conviction, officials said.
The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it is continuing to investigate the escape.
Orenellas was hit as he was running north in the southbound lane of Kuhio Highway, Kauai police said. Police are searching for the driver, who left the scene before first responders arrived.
A public defender who represented Ornellas for a probation violation declined previously to comment on the escape.
Delays in federal workers’ comp can lead to delayed medical care, turning injuries into disabilities
Injured federal employees say their treatable injuries are at risk of progressing into lifelong disabilities because the workers’ compensation program that covers their medical costs and procedures is clogged by low staffing, convoluted processes and an increase in claims.
Workers and their advocates say filing a claim is a knotty experience of complicated paperwork and slow response times and, in some extreme cases, it can take years to get an approval.
Joshua Lejeune, 33, is one of those workers. He needs surgery after injuring his knee while on patrol as a police officer at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Louisiana last year and is still waiting for approval. Since filing the workers’ compensation claim in March 2022, he has been unable to safely carry his infant daughter up the stairs of his home.
Because it’s a workers’ compensation case, his insurance won’t cover his procedure and doctors are unable to work on his knee without an approved claim. The longer he waits, the more at risk he is for a complete knee replacement, he said doctors have told him.
“It’s crazy,” said Lejeune, who can’t afford the $50,000 out-of-pocket estimate for the procedure and who has lost work and employment opportunities because of the injury. “It’s a complete nightmare.”
And he isn’t the only one experiencing this nightmare.
The process has created delays for countless employees across the federal government’s numerous agencies, union officials and labor attorneys said. From the Federal Bureau of Prisons to the U.S. Postal Service, federal workers and their advocates described a Byzantine process that they received little help to navigate. And while their doctors might tell them a procedure or scan is necessary, it can take weeks or months to receive approval from the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, or OWCP, an agency that falls under the Labor Department.
OWCP said it is working readily to remedy concerns.
“OWCP is deeply committed to providing federal workers injured or sickened on the job the benefits they’re entitled to in a timely manner. The current administration has taken many actions to strengthen the FECA program and we will continue to find new ways to make the program work better for those filing a claim,” OWCP Director Chris Godfrey said in a statement, referring to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.
‘A tremendous problem’
Joe Mansour, the workers’ compensation specialist at the country’s largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees, said he has been brought in to work on almost 1,000 cases since the start of the year because of delays and other issues. He emphasized that the union has contended with the problem under both Democrats and Republicans in the White House, but it grew particularly difficult under the Trump administration.
“Many federal employees I speak to say dealing with workers’ comp is one of the most difficult things that they have ever experienced in the government,” he said. “It seems like the current administration is trying to improve things, but it remains a tremendous problem.”
The claims processing workforce shrank while Donald Trump was president, according to data provided by the Labor Department. One of the logjams potentially making the problem worse is that this smaller number of employees has had to tackle a larger number of cases.
The scale of the requests has grown precipitously. The FECA program received 182,303 new injury claims in fiscal year 2022, according to data provided by the Labor Department. That represents a 62% increase over 2013 when it received 112,807 claims.
In response, the Biden administration has increased staffing, hiring 281 new claims examiners and 55 medical treatment adjudicators to make the FECA program work better for claimants, according to the Labor Department data. Staffing levels are slowly climbing back to where they sat almost 10 years ago, and the agency said it has created new processes to escalate inquiries, simplified forms and hired an ombudsperson to investigate specific claims.
Still, claimants said the undertaking can become confrontational when they need to continually check in or involve lawyers to speed up the process. Claims are often denied by case workers, which can cause the entire effort to take much longer.
And when it’s a person’s well-being on the line, union leaders and workers emphasized that a time-consuming approval process can take a cruel hold on people’s lives, whether intentional or not.
“If a case is denied, we can appeal it — and we do well on appeals,” said a union leader who asked to remain anonymous because the representative works regularly with the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. “We get a lot of stuff overturned, but it takes months to do that and time is not on the workers’ side.”
Pete Hobart, 50, a power plant mechanic at the Dalles Dam, which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the border between Washington and Oregon, hurt a disk in his back while working in February 2022. With little information on how to navigate the process, it took 10 months for him to obtain the approval for surgery.
“Now my lower leg is numb,” he said, adding he believes it is nerve damage caused by waiting for the workers’ compensation approval. “You know when the doctor beats on your knee and your leg kicks? Mine doesn’t do that anymore.”
The hardship of a slow process
Federal employees say the process is very complicated and they receive little guidance to navigate the paperwork and requirements. Attorneys and union leaders who have been involved in helping to get claims processed said that delays are not an anomaly of just a few extreme cases but are affecting many claimants.
To help members of his union, Mansour holds workshops at sites across the country and online for federal employees because so many people continue to struggle through the process. He has held more than 30 workshops this year, which included an online course last week attended by more than 160 employees.
“As of now, the agency just does not provide sufficient information to the injured employee,” he said when asked about the need for the workshops. “When an employee is injured, they’re on their own.”
Two union representatives, each working for a different federal agency, said the problem is so pernicious that they sometimes advise members to file claims under their personal health insurance first and report the workers’ compensation claim after they’ve received the necessary help — or avoid the process altogether.
Attorneys who have worked on federal workers’ compensation claims said that can be problematic, however, as it still requires individuals to come up with copays and deductibles out of pocket that they may not be able to get reimbursed afterward. It can also affect the evidence workers might need to gather to get claims approved.
“Part of the problem in many cases is that once a claim is accepted, private insurance companies won’t typically pay for treatment,” said Aaron Aumiller, an attorney who has worked on federal workers’ compensation cases for almost two decades.
The wait can be emotionally excruciating, and it often takes an immense toll on individuals involved in the process. Multiple employees described spiraling in negative thoughts as they waited to get claims approved.
Jim Karney, 55, who works as a hydropower plant operator in Idaho, slipped on ice outside the Corps dam he worked at two days before Christmas in 2021. The accident, which injured both his shoulders, was recorded by cameras at the plant. After filing an OWCP claim, he was unable to receive approval for an MRI until February 2022, but only for his left shoulder. The following month his doctor told him that a torn rotator cuff had worsened and had permanently affected the muscle in his left shoulder. He was told that because of the delay, he will never be able to regain strength in his shoulder.
It took another five weeks to be approved for an MRI of his right shoulder, where another rotator cuff tear as well as a bicep tear were identified. Two-and-a-half months later he was able to get surgery on the right side.
The injuries have limited his range of motion. It forced him to sleep in a recliner each night for months, and he still can’t lift a gallon of milk with his left hand. The process, at times, has left him vacillating from tears of self-pity to intense anger and severe depression. He’s just learned to cope with the pain emotionally.
“I never did feel suicidal, but I really wanted the pain to end,” he said. “I wasn’t willing to go that far, but this process drives your mind that way.”
That’s a familiar feeling for many, who said they’re left to spiral in their pain without a sense of recourse.
Lejeune, who quit the VA and is now working in sales, said the process presumes that claimants know the workers’ compensation program thoroughly. That assumption and his experience has him swearing off government work forever.
“I don’t ever want to work for another government agency again,” he said. “When I was injured, I had zero help. It’s a joke.”
Florida roller coaster closed after boy falls and suffers ‘traumatic injuries’
A child was injured at an Orlando-area theme park after falling from a roller coaster, which has since been temporarily closed, officials said Friday.
The child, described as a 6-year-old, was hospitalized after he apparently fell Thursday afternoon from the Galaxy Spin ride at Fun Spot America, near Kissimmee, fire officials said.
“Units arrived to find a 6-year-old with traumatic injuries under the rollercoaster track which was approximately 20 feet above,” Osceola County Fire Rescue and EMS Office said in a statement.
The boy was taken to Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, first responders said. His condition was not available.
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is investigating the incident, department spokesperson Aaron Keller said.
“The ride is closed pending the outcome of the investigation,” he said.
Fun Spot said in a statement that a preliminary inspection of Galaxy Spin by state officials “found it to be in normal operating condition with no mechanical issues.”
The park said it would not reopen the ride until its leadership was sure such an incident will not happen again.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the child and their family, and we pray for a speedy recovery,” the park said. “The safety of our guests is our number one priority.”
The website Roller Coaster DataBase, which tracks coaster specifications globally, states Galaxy Spin has “spinning cars” that can rotate as it moves along the tight turns that help define it as a “wild mouse” style attraction.
The Galaxy Spin can travel at 29 mph and can subject riders to a force 2.5 times that of gravity, according to the database.
Fun Spot America, which also operates parks in Orlando and Atlanta, said children must be at least 48 inches tall to ride Galaxy Spin or 42 inches if they’re with an adult.
Kissimmee is about 22 miles south of Orlando.
The injury comes days after an incident involving a roller coaster at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, in which the ride appeared to unexpectedly freeze near the top.
Videos and photos posted Monday on social media appear to show passengers walking down stairs from near the top of the 205-foot Magnum XL-200 coaster.
The coaster is touted on the park’s website as a Guinness Book of World Records holder for its leading-edge height.
Representatives for Cedar Point amusement park did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the Fourth of July holiday, a video shared by festival-goers in Wisconsin showed a number of riders hanging from a roller coaster stuck upside down midway. Last month in Rye, New York, a spinning ride would not stop until the amusement park’s staff eventually had no choice but to pull the plug so passengers could exit the ride.
Also this summer, a ride at Carowinds in North Carolina was shut down after a guest spotted a large crack that caused a support beam to move out of place as a car went by.
Inyoung Choi, Sarah Kaufman and Emma Li contributed.
Typhoon Khanun forecast to turn back to Japanese islands where it already left damage and injuries
TOKYO (AP) — The typhoon that damaged homes and knocked out power on Okinawa and other Japanese islands this week was slowly moving west Thursday but is forecast to make a U-turn and dump even more rain on the archipelago.
Typhoon Khanun, now in the waters between China and Japan’s southwestern islands, is expected to slow to nearly stationary movement before a weakening high pressure system nearby allows it to turn east Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
That forecast would largely spare China, where rain from an earlier typhoon caused deadly flooding and damage this week around the capital, Beijing.
Khanun, which means jackfruit in Thai, had sustained surface winds of 162 kph (100 mph) with higher gusts Thursday morning. Up to 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) of rainfall were expected in the Okinawa region by midday Friday, JMA said.
China and Taiwan were also making preparations for the storm. Though the eye is forecast to stay offshore as the typhoon turns east, winds exceeding 90 kph (56 mph) extended an average radius of 100 kilometers (60 miles), Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said Thursday afternoon.
China’s weather authorities issued rainstorm alerts for the eastern coast, from Jilin province, near the border with North Korea, to Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai. Ships were called into port and passenger ferry services halted in Zhejiang province.
Light rain was falling in the Taiwanese port city of Keelung, near Taipei, and coast guard personnel were warning people to stay off the beaches. The island shut its financial markets Thursday, some of its northern cities shut offices and schools, and offices closed in anticipation of worsening weather on the northeastern coast.
In Okinawa, the typhoon injured 41 people, three of them seriously, according to the prefectural government. A 90-year-old man was found under a collapsed garage in Ogimi village, and his death is being investigated as possibly caused by the typhoon’s high winds.
The storm at one point left nearly 220,000 homes, or about 30%, of those in Okinawa, without power, according to the Okinawa Electric Power Company. Also, some 7,000 homes on Amami, an island northeast of the Okinawan islands and part of Kagoshima prefecture, were without power, according to the Economy and Industry Ministry.
Most were still without power Thursday as the storm hampered restoration work. Hospitals that lost power were only receiving emergency cases.
Wind warnings for the main Okinawa Island were lifted Thursday, though moderate winds and rain were affecting the island. Public transit systems that closed during the storm resumed operations, and some flights in and out of the Naha Airport are expected to resume later Thursday.
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AP journalists Johnson Lai in Keelung, Taiwan, and Simina Mistreanu in Taipei, and AP researchers Bing Yu and Wanqing Chen in Beijing contributed to this report.
Otteroo baby neck floats still on sale despite reports of injuries and one infant death
A California company that makes baby neck floats has refused to recall the inflatable devices despite safety warnings from two federal agencies and a report of a baby drowning while using the product, Consumer Reports warned.
Since the Otteroo first appeared on the market, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has received 68 incident reports about the inflatable flotation ring designed for babies as young as three weeks. In all cases, the infants had to be rescued by their caregivers, Consumer Reports said. Although many of the infants in the CPSC’s incident reports had no lasting injuries, some required hospital visits, CPR or intubation, according to the consumer advocacy and media organization.
An Otteroo neck float helped lead to the drowning death of a 6-month-old infant in Maine three years ago after the child slipped through the neck hole of the device, the CPSC said. A 3-month-old was seriously injured in New York last year in a similar situation, the agency said.
Otteroo founder Tiffany Chiu said the products are safe with proper parental supervision, telling CBS MoneyWatch that infants can also slip out of other products, such as bath seats.
“In any situation in or near water, whether a child is using an Otteroo or not, the potential for accidents exists,” Chiu said. “It could be a child slipping out of a bath seat or even from a parent’s hands. It’s crucial to remember that the key to mitigating such risks is attentive, active supervision.”
Federal safety warning
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year advised parents not to use any neck float products, and the CPSC has issued a similar warning. The agencies, which cannot force Otteroo to recall its neck floats, note that the devices could deflate and start to potentially tighten around an infant’s neck, risking strangulation.
Otteroo.com
Chiu said any inflatable device that loses air can harm a child.
“We strongly disagree with CPSC’s statement that Otteroo is defectively designed because it could deflate due to a leak — this is indeed the inherent nature of all inflatables,” she told CBS MoneyWatch. “Unfortunately, CPSC has singled out Otteroo and ignored thousands of other inflatable children’s products on the market, and has imposed an unrealistic and impossible standard that our float should not carry the risk of deflation.”
Consumer Reports focused on Otteroo because it is the most popular brand of neck float and because of the company’s resistance to issuing a product recall, Oriene Shin, policy counsel for Consumer Reports, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Mambobaby, Swimava and other companies also make baby neck floats, but those manufacturers “don’t have the same brand recognition as her products has,” Shin added, referring to Chiu.
Shin noted that companies often decline to recall a product unless there is definitive proof it is potentially harmful. But that could be dangerous for companies that make baby products.
“That means they need to see more babies and children get injured and die, and that’s just unacceptable to me,” she said. “We can’t wait for additional data to hold companies accountable and keep babies safe.”
Baby neck floats started gaining in popularity several years ago, with photos of the pint-sized swim devices cropping up on social media, prompting one pediatrician to describe the products as “potential death traps” in multiple news accounts.
The neck floats are touted by manufacturers as a product that gives babies mobility, but the FDA said the effectiveness of the products has not been established. The agency said floats shouldn’t be used, particularly for babies with spina bifida, spinal muscular atrophy, Down syndrome or cerebral palsy.