Personal Injury Law

Injuries Soar

By Beth Janicek

Nail gun injuries take off during the building boom of the 2000's.  Air powered nail guns equipped with a mechanism that allows automatic firing known as "contact trip" have been in controversy surrounding warnings from researchers and doctors.  Some nail guns can blast 30 nails a minute that travel up to 490 feet per second, qualifying the nails as low-velocity missiles.  When the nail guns are in contact trip mode they fire those missiles into whatever surface it makes contact with, including hands, heads, eyes and chests. 

The regulatory agencies have not addressed the tool's hazards; therefore, causing thousands of unnecessary injuries.  A comprehensive national estimate found that 42,000 people with nail gun injuries show up at U.S. hospital emergency rooms annually - more than 100 a day.  These figures are staggering. 

A construction worker, Manuel Murillo, shot himself with one of these low-velocity missiles and ended up with a 2½ inch nail deep in his chest causing his death.  Murillo's widow has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the toolmaker Hitachi-Koki U.S.A. stating the nail gun was negligently designed, defective and of "dangerous character and condition." 

Manufacturers are sacrificing safety to boost the sale of the nail guns and something needs to be done about these death missiles.   

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).