Over the weekend, a garbage truck was involved in a serious accident involving a BMW on Long Island which caused power lines to topple while causing the BMW SUV to be engulfed in flames, it was reported.
The accident took place on Saturday at Inwood at about 4:15 a.m. as the BMW was being driven in a southerly direction on Sheridan Boulevard and the privately owned garbage truck was heading in a westerly direction down Bayview Avenue. Nearby residents reported hearing a boom as the garbage truck T-boned the BMW from the right, sparking a fire that consumed both vehicles.
As commonly happens when a much larger and heavier vehicle collides with a much smaller one, the occupants of the BMW were killed outright, while the driver of the truck survived. In fact, the bodies of the two people who were in the BMW were so badly burned due to the conflagration that police said that it would be almost impossible to determine their identity. In fact, they are not entirely sure whether there was a third person in the car at the time of the accident.
The garbage truck driver was taken to a nearby hospital and it is very likely that he will survive his injuries, even though the truck was badly burned, too.
The crash caused considerable disruption to power in the local area and the highways were closed around the intersection for several hours, but no other vehicles were affected directly by the crash.
T-boning type accidents are most common at intersections when one or the other of two vehicles misjudges the speed or distance of other vehicles and is too late to correct their own vehicle’s movement. Because one of the vehicles hits the other at a weak point where there is little or no cushion to protect the occupants, serious injuries are very common. Even very minor T-bone accidents can cause serious injuries or fatalities as in this example if the vehicle that does the T-boning is a truck or other large vehicle.
There is no information or speculation as to the cause of this particular accident and no doubt there will be no full conclusion until the driver gives his story to crash investigators and the site and wreckage itself are examined carefully.
At this stage, the accident has still resulted in a horrifying end of life for at least two people who probably had no reason to expect that their vehicle would be hit that day. If these victims had dependent family members then financial hardship may be experienced as well as the psychological trauma and effects that the deaths are likely to have on loved ones.
Nothing can bring back these two accident victims but at least there is a legal mechanism available in the state which may allow any dependent family members to recoup the financial losses resulting from an accident such as this. A wrongful death compensation claim may be appropriate if it is eventually discovered that negligence played a part in the accident. That may be negligence by the driver, the driver’s garbage company or another party at fault which may be revealed as a result of the investigation.
If you, or a family member, suffers serious injuries as a result of an accident in which someone else was to blame, or a breadwinner in your family has been killed as a result of negligence, then the best option is to contact an experienced personal injury lawyer like Richard S. Jaffe Esq. who will be able to help you with a claim to compensate you for the injuries or death.
He can be contacted for a free consultation at the Law Offices of Cohen & Jaffe LLP 2001 Marcus Avenue, Suite W295, Lake Success, NY 11042. Phone: 516-358-6900 or toll free: 800-483-6149.
