A Transocean, Ltd. Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded sending a fireball into the night Tuesday injuring 17 workers, four critically, who were airlifted to hospitals for treatment of burns, broken bones and smoke inhalation. As of Wednesday morning, 11 workers were still missing adding to the anguish of worried relatives. The missing have not been identified pending notification to their families.

The rig is located 50 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The suspected blowout could end up being the deadliest offshore drilling accident in the past fifty years. Nearly 100 of the Horizon workers made it aboard a supply vessel which brought them to shore. Hopefully the 11 missing workers escaped in lifeboats. Coast Guard search boats and aircraft continue to try to locate them. The explosion gave no time for workers to evacuate. Prior to the explosion, crews were doing routine work with no apparent signs of trouble according to company officials.

The rig is tilting as much as 10 degrees following the blast as fireboat crews work to contain the ongoing flames which caused a huge plume of black smoke to rise hundreds of feet into the air. Authorities are unable to say when the fire can be extinguished so investigative teams can determine what actually went wrong and assess damage to the environment.

Working in the offshore oil industry is dangerous. Since 2001 there have been 858 fires and explosions in the Gulf causing 69 deaths and 1,300 injuries. Many modern rigs use various preventative measures against blowouts including use of gas detector alarms, weighing down natural gas to prevent it from rising up into the well, and anti-sparking machinery.
The focus, as it should be, is currently on locating the missing and treating the injured. Godspeed to the victims and the rescuers alike.

An explosion was reported to the U.S. Coast Guard around 10 pm last night concerning a drilling rig owned by Transocean. The semi-submersible rig was located approximately 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana and was working for BP Exploration and Production on the Macondo prospect in the Gulf of Mexico. It was reported that all 126 workers had evacuated from the rig, however there are still 9 to 15 people feared missing as they have not been accounted for. At least seven people have been reported to be injured, with several being critically hurt. Fortunately, at this time there have been no reports of any deaths. A BP spokesperson said that all BP on-board personnel have been accounted for.

The cause of the fire has not been determined but an investigation will be carried out according to the Coast Guard . The Coast Guard advised that four helicopters, four boats and a plane were helping in the search. This tragic accident reminds us of the dangers that offshore workers face every day as they work providing us with energy-producing oil and gas.

We pray for the workers and their families, especially for those who have been injured, and we pray that the missing workers are safe and soon located.

Starting Wednesday April 21, 2010 the public will be able to purchase accident reports prepared by the State Police through their website. You simply need to log on to their website and click on the Crash Report Req link on their homepage’s menu bar and this in turn will take you to the . This will take you to their Statewide Crash Report website where you will need to input the name of the driver or pedestrian, parish where the accident occurred and the date of the accident. The costs of the accident report will be $8.50 and you can purchase it with a credit card and then you will be able to print a PDF copy of the report.

This is a welcomed change to the way we have previously requested State Police accident reports where we would have to mail a check along with a request to the State Police headquarters in Baton Rouge or to one of the local troop locations in the parish where the accident occurred. Often times there is confusion among what agency wrote the report and you would have to send requests and checks to the various agencies such as City Police, Sheriff, ect. Now, with the new system in place one can preview the report to ensure it is the correct report.

This is another example of computers working to make us more efficient and our State government willing and able to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

My wife and I took my grandmother into our home after she was placed in a nursing home due to the fact that she was suffering from the beginning stages of dementia and could no longer safely function on her own. However, my 90 year-old grandmother, who had lived all her life in the home she grew up in, had plans of her own for her future, and they did not include a nursing home. When my wife visited with grandma, grandma shared her distress at living in an institutional setting, with the end result being that she joined our sometimes chaotic household that included two busy, working parents, three very active boys, a dog, and a cat. Little did we know what a blessing it would be for our family to have this woman living with us for the final two years of her life.

During the day, we wondered what we could do to keep her busy and also to keep her safe. We found out about The Friendship House in Alexandria, Louisiana. This is an adult daycare center for the elderly. The Friendship House truly made it possible for grandma to live with us, yet have appropriate care while we were working. We would drop her off after the smallest child had been delivered to daycare, and then we would pick her up as soon as we collected the last child in the afternoon. The Friendship House had activities designed for people like her. She could paint, bowl, sing, watch TV, knit, and they even had a walking track. She really enjoyed the time she spent with her contemporaries during the day, and she looked forward to going home with her family in the afternoons.

She was very active and spritely for a 90 year-old. We took her on vacations and camping; we took her shopping and to the beauty shop; we took her to the lake and to church. She always dressed up and everyone loved talking with her. She was interested in everyone.

Besides giving the children a chance to know their great grandmother, having her in our home taught our children so many things. We had three generations living under one roof at the same time, and it gave our children a chance to see and hear about a different kind of life. This woman who was born at the beginning of the century was a history lesson in the flesh. She entertained them with stories of her early life, explaining how people lived and worked and played in a different era. And while we as working parents were sometimes too busy to hear about the kids’ daily adventures, grandma was always an available and willing listener.

But she also taught them something else, something more intrinsic and important. She taught them gentleness and complete acceptance. She taught them the joy of having someone’s complete attention. And by loving them so wholeheartedly and unselfishly, she taught them how to willingly, even eagerly, make sacrifices to accommodate her frailties. And finally, her passing taught them about letting go and looking forward to a heavenly reunion. Having her in our home blessed us far more than it did her.

Sometimes there is an alternative to nursing home care, and I encourage anyone to look into it as the reward can substantially outweigh any inconvenience to the household.

Neblett, Beard & Arsenault’s founding partner, Attorney Richard J. Arsenault, was invited to New York University School of Law last week to celebrate the dedication of the 67th Volume of the Annual Survey of American Law.

Founded in 1942, the Annual Survey is a student-edited journal that serves as comprehensive annual reference to developments in American law. Each volume is dedicated to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to American law. This year’s dedicatee is Professor Arthur R. Miller, a personal friend of Richard’s and a leading scholar in the field of American civil procedure.

At the event, Professor Miller was honored his colleagues and friends, including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States, New York University President John Sexton, Judge Robert Sack of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, television journalist Charles Gibson, Brad Friedman, Esq. of Milberg LLP; Henry Gutman, Esq. of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP; Professor David Shapiro of the Harvard Law School; Professor Linda Silberman of the NYU School of Law and author Jeffrey Toobin.

Richard Arsenault was invited to and attended the dedication as well as private receptions to honor Professor Miller following the event.

Miller is considered to be one of the nation’s most distinguished legal scholars in the areas of civil litigation, copyright, unfair competition and privacy. He is the author of more than 40 books, among them a casebook on civil procedure used at virtually every U.S. law school and the multi-volume treatise Federal Practice and Procedure, widely regarded as the foremost authority on its subject. At the same time, he has long played a highly visible role explaining and interpreting law for the general public. He served, for example, as legal editor of Good Morning America, on ABC TV for more than twenty years; host of his own show, Millers Law, on Court TV; and a moderator on numerous shows for public television. Miller has received two Emmy awards and several ABA Gavel awards for promoting public understanding of the law. He has served all three branches of the federal government on a variety of public interest matters. In 2007, after 35 years at the Harvard Law School, Professor Miller joined the faculty of NYU Law as a University Professor, a distinguished position reserved for those whose work encompasses multiple disciplines. Along with his academic duties, Professor Miller serves as Special Counsel to the class-action law firm Milberg LLP, and heads the firm’s appellate practice.

Professor Miller’s influence also extends to the art world. For years, he admired and collected the works one of the greatest Japanese woodblock print artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi. He gave the complete collection of over 1,800 prints to the British Museum, and they were first exhibited at the Royal Academy in London last spring; they are now on display at the Japan Society in New York City.

United States District Court for the District of Arizona, Judge Frederick J. Martone has appointed Attorney Richard J. Arsenault to serve on the Personal Injury Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee for the national Zicam multi-district litigation.

With this appointment, Arsenault will now serve in an important role in the litigation against the makers of the over-the-counter cold remedy, Zicam.

The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee often referred to as the “PSC” will conduct and coordinate the discovery in the Zicam litigation and will act on behalf of all plaintiffs during the pretrial proceedings.

A veteran of class action and complex litigation, Richard J. Arsenault and his partners actively represent victims who have lost their sense of smell after having used Zicam.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 decision which allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of their money on political ads, Congress is now proposing legislation which would require the corporations to identify who pays for the ads which are designed to sway public opinion of candidates running for office. The Court’s decision in January which changed legal precedents that had stood for decades triggered concern that companies would anonymously funnel unprecedented amounts of money to fund pro-business/anti-consumer campaigns.

The biggest business lobbying group in the nation is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which spent $47 million on advertising in 2009 to defeat health care reform in addition to $144 million for lobbying. The Chamber plans to spend $50 million in this mid-term election year on candidate-focused ads alone. The proposed legislation forces disclosure of who is funding the ads which will allow voters to better understand who may benefit from the issue. The Court’s decision also invalidated the 2002 campaign finance laws which had the support of only four Republicans. Any new legislation would need the support of 60 Senators to shut off an expected Republican filibuster.

Why should we care? Because the ordinary citizen’s rights may be eroded or eliminated through heavily-funded, corporate-influenced political advertising who can now hide behind their veil of secrecy to promote legislation to their advantage. Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers will be able to fund legislation to shield themselves from liability for their defective products. Liability insurance companies can support candidates who will push so-called “tort reform” to limit damages in everything from medical malpractice to punitive damages. Political campaign funding should be transparent so the American public knows who is contributing to a particular campaign and the reasons why they are doing so.

In my professional capacity as a personal injury attorney, I have looked to find appropriate nursing home care for individuals who have been severely injured and can no longer live on their own. On a more personal level, I searched for a nursing home for my father who, with increasingly serious health issues, could no longer be cared for in my home. I searched for nursing homes by making appointments to inspect them, by talking with hospital personnel for recommendations, and by simply asking friends and acquaintances “what would be the best nursing home?”

In my ongoing research, I recently found a dependable tool that can help you to narrow your search for an appropriate nursing home within the parameters you have deemed most important to you and your family. It is an official United States government website put out by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to assist individuals in finding and comparing appropriate nursing home care in their area. This website rates nursing homes based on health inspections, staffing, and quality measures. It also provides an overall rating to each nursing home, provides the address and telephone number for nursing homes, and gives travel directions. The website lists whether the nursing home accepts Medicare and/or Medicaid, the number of certified beds in the facility, the type of ownership, and whether the nursing home is a corporation, individually owned, for profit, or nonprofit.

The website is very easy to use and has detailed information about every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country. You can find nursing homes within your state, county, or city. You can also locate a home by using their name or you simply use a certain distance within your zip code.

This site allows you to make preliminary decisions by comparing issues that you as an individual are not normally privy to. Once choices have been narrowed using this website, I encourage people to get personally involved in the selection process: Discuss the issue with your doctor or healthcare provider; ask family and friends; inspect the facility; and last, but not least, make impromptu visits to the nursing homes under consideration, perhaps speaking with current residents or family of residents. This website is a great tool that can help you decide what is best for your loved one when they are no longer capable of independent living.

An 18-Wheeler wreck killed four people including a Baton Rouge police officer in a fiery crash on Interstate 10 just east of Grosse Tete. An 18-wheeler traveling east hit a broken-down 18-wheeler parked on the eastbound shoulder, lost control and crossed the median striking an SUV and another 18-wheeler bursting into flames.

Emergency rescuers could not get close because the flames were too hot. The police officer and his cousin who was also killed were in the SUV. Investigators also mistook the SUV for a small car. Also killed were the drivers of the 18-wheelers. The driver of the broken down 18-wheeler on the shoulder was asleep in the cab and not injured. He was cited for failure to properly display warning devices for a disabled vehicle on the shoulder. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations require the 18-wheeler driver to take immediate steps to protect the motoring public. Part 392.22: Emergency signals; stopped commercial motor vehicles.

Researchers recently completed a study of over 10,000 heart patients and found disturbing evidence that more than a third of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) receive more recommendations for angioplasty and fewer recommendations for coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) than indicated by current guidelines developed by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. The purpose of the study was to confirm whether cardiologists were following existing guidelines for use of angioplasty and CABG. The conclusion of the report is a resounding “No”.

CAD is a condition in which plaque build-up starves the heart of its blood supply. CABG, also known as “open-heart surgery,” is a procedure in which the rib cage is spread open and a section of a healthy blood vessel is attached to “bypass” the blocked section of the coronary artery and improve the blood supply to the heart. Angioplasty is a less invasive procedure used to widen narrowed or blocked arteries. A thin tube, or catheter, is threaded through a blood vessel to the affected area and a small balloon is inflated to open the blockage.

The study found that only 53 percent of patients for whom the guidelines called for CABG were actually recommended for the surgery; 34 percent of these patients were instead recommended for angioplasty. Recent studies have found CAGB surgery outcomes to be better than angioplasty outcomes for most patients.

What’s also of concern is that the tendency to recommend angioplasty was emphasized at hospitals with inhouse angioplasty capabilities. Six angioplasties can be performed in the time it takes to do one bypass procedure. So, why are doctors ordering procedures not indicated by the established guidelines? Dr. Raymond J. Gibbons of the Mayo Clinic says “the recommendations for angioplasty in patients indicated for CABG reflect a ‘grow the business’ and ‘make it up in volume’ mentality in response to declining reimbursement rates.” That’s a nice way of saying profit is driving medical decisions rather than what’s the best therapy for patients.

Dr. Gibbons says this trend among cardiologists is of greatest concern to him and reflects some doctors’ reaction to the current health care insurance reimbursement system that favors tests and procedures. He fears that if these concerns are not addressed, physicians run the risk of losing the confidence of patients and will most likely result in further governmental regulation.