[nagdu] Guide dog injured on escalator

Sun Nov 8 22:21:23 UTC 2009

Medford resident plans to file lawsuit, bill after guide dog
injured on escalator
By Nell Escobar Coakley/ncoakley at cnc.com
Thu Nov 05, 2009, 09:00 AM EST
Source:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/medford/news/x1312011995/Medford-resid
ent-plans-to-file-lawsuit-bill-after-guide-dog-injured-on-escalat
or

Editor's Note: The following is part one of two. See next week's
Medford Transcript for part two.

When his 5-year-old guide dog was badly injured in an escalator
accident this summer, one local resident made it his mission to
file a bill that will protect all assistance animals traveling in
public places with their owners.

"My anger over the whole thing is finally gone," said Steve
Giannaros, of Wellington Circle. "But I also don't want it to
happen to anyone else. I can't let something go on. I have to
correct this problem."

The problem is what Giannaros perceives as the shoddy treatment
he received from the state following an accident on an escalator
in the John W. McCormack Building in Boston.

On June 26, Giannaros and his German shepherd guide dog, Dakota,
were riding the escalator upstairs from the cafeteria. Upon
reaching the top, Giannaros felt a thump and heard a loud wailing
coming from the animal.

"He was wailing like crazy," Giannaros recalled with a shudder.
"It was horrible. I could hear him screaming. It was really
chaotic."

Although several people immediately jumped in to help, Giannaros
said it was a state trooper who really came through by driving
him and Dakota to Angell Animal Medical Center.

"He was at Angell for about five days," Giannaros said. "The
doctors said the two pads of the middle toes of his right back
leg were badly injured. After a few days, they said they had no
way to repair it and if they tried, he couldn't work. I was
devastated. If he couldn't work again, I would have had to give
him away."

Doctors amputated the two pads, and it took more than five weeks
for Dakota to recuperate from his wounds.

"Angell said he would be fine and that he would work and live a
normal life," Giannaros said. "He's fine now."

In the meantime, Giannaros found himself homebound, missing
several weeks of work at his job in the Secretary of State's
Office because he could not travel without Dakota. And it was his
job to take care of the animal as well.

"He had stitches for four weeks and his foot was in a cast," he
said. "When he got the cast removed, he was very raw."

Giannaros, whose vision has failed over the past 10 years, spent
his time at home not only caring for his dog, but getting angrier
and angrier. Especially when a friend called him and told him the
escalator Dakota had been injured on was running only 30 minutes
following the accident.

"I got really mad," he said. "A half an hour later, they mopped
up the blood like the whole thing never happened."

The situation was compounded after he said he was told that
another guide dog was injured the same way on the same escalator
only a month before Dakota.

"That just made me feel horrible," he said. "What if a little kid
or an old woman's shoe got caught in that escalator?"

And so Giannaros started looking into the laws and proper
procedures governing escalators in the commonwealth of
Massachusetts.

The investigation

While homebound, Giannaros started making some calls. First, he
tried the Department of Public Safety, where he spoke to an
escalator inspector named Lenny Chase. He said this man told him
that state law specifically states if an accident occurs, the
escalator must be shut down until it is fixed - and it can only
be turned back on once the DPS inspects its safety.

Giannaros said Chase told him no one had filed a report about the
accident with DPS. About three weeks after the accident,
Giannaros called Chase again, but was referred to another
inspector, whom he said has never called him, despite leaving
several phone messages.

Giannaros said he then called the building's management, the
Bureau of State Office Buildings, in order to obtain a full
report of the accident. With no calls returned, he filed his own
report.

"By then, they said they filed a report with Public Safety and
that it was out of their hands," he said. "It seemed like
everyone was passing me off to everyone else."

Fed up, Giannaros called the Massachusetts Office on Disability
(MOD). After speaking with the director herself, Giannaros said
he was told the case was not discriminatory in nature and that
MOD could not help him.

"They seemed like they didn't want to get involved because this
was another state agency," he said. "They suggested I find
outside counsel."

By September, Giannaros had received no telephone calls from
anyone, despite his persistence. And to top it all off, he
received a $3,000 bill from Angell for Dakota's care.

But there was one more surprise in store.

"I lost my job," he said, with a shake of his head. "My boss
called and said I had two options: a leave of absence with no pay
or a voluntary layoff."

Giannaros took the latter, choosing to go back to graduate school
to study disability issues. He also paid off Dakota's hospital
bill, although he plans to file a small claim against the state
for negligence in failing to keep the escalator in safe working
condition.

Yet, he couldn't let go of the fact that no one seemed to care
about the problematic escalator or the fact that his dog was
injured.

"It's not like he was the first dog to be hurt," he said. "I
think they thought I would just give up."

Second investigation

But he didn't give up. Not even close.

In August, Giannaros started writing to the local and Boston
media about the accident and while he received a call here and
there, no one seemed interested in his story.

"I have no idea why," he said. "None of this makes sense."

After hearing Giannaros' story, the Transcript contacted the
Division of Inspection, a DPS office which, according to
Secretary of State William Galvin's "Commonwealth of
Massachusetts Citizens' Guide to State Services" Web site, "is
responsible for the annual inspection of all existing elevators,
sidewalk elevators, dumbwaiters, hosts, lifts, escalators and
moving stairways and for the plan review/inspection of all new
installations in the state."

An official in the office, who did not identify himself, declined
to comment, stating that any requests for information should be
made in writing to the legal office of the DPS. The official
transferred the Transcript to a media official, who failed to
return a message requesting the state laws and regulations.

A further call to the Executive Office of Public Safety and
Security, which oversees the DPS, was transferred to
Communications Director Terrel Harris, who asked an e-mail be
sent with specific questions regarding the case.

In mid-September, the Transcript sent several questions to
Harris, requesting the following information: the process for an
inspection following an escalator accident, the last two dates of
inspection for the escalators at McCormack and if the DPS had
received any incident reports involving guide dogs in the
building. An additional request was made to speak to Chase.

Harris stated escalators are inspected annually, the last dates
being June 16 and June 18, 2008.

He added that Chapter 4 of state regulations clearly states that,
"Once an owner learns that a person has sustained a serious
injury in an elevator accident, the elevator shall be immediately
shut down until express consent to resume operation is granted by
a supervisor of elevator inspectors employed by the Department.
In the event of such an accident, the owner shall be responsible
to ensure that the elevator and area surrounding the elevator are
secured and are not disturbed, cleaned, or altered in any way
until such time as an inspector has completed an investigation.
The only exception to this requirement shall be acts in
furtherance of ensuring the safety of the area or a person, or
for the extraction of an injured person."

He went on to say the state had received no report from Steve
Giannaros about the accident and that the DPS was notified orally
by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency about the
McCormack Building incident.

He also stated it would "not be possible" to speak to Chase.

"Bottom line: neither the statute (G.L. c.143, s.66) nor
regulations require that DPS be notified or a report be filed in
a situation like this," Harris wrote in his e-mail. "If the
injury that the dog sustained happened to a person, we'd have a
whole different story. Then, the unit would have to be shut down
and a full report filed in accordance with the regs including the
section cited above. Apparently, the comb plate was broken when
the incident occurred. That was fixed and looked at by one of our
inspectors to make sure it was done properly."

In a follow up e-mail, Harris said that inspection was done July
9, 2009, although he could not say when the actual repairs took
place.

"I'm not surprised this their response," Giannaros said. "It's
just a dog. That makes me angry. I think it's awful they didn't
check into it after the first dog was injured."

- Did they or didn't they check into the problematic escalator?
And what, if anything, has the state done to make sure another
accident doesn't occur? Check next week's Transcript for part two
of this story.

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Comments (2)

vlizzled3 days ago
Report Abuse 
This is upsetting and uncalled for, but unfortunately, I do not
find it surprising! I am sick of the attitude of 'its just a dog'
and I cannot believe this man was forced to leave his job.
Instead of progressing as a society, we continue to regress.
ada3 days ago
Report AbuseIt seems to me that the people who were contacted in
the investigation of this incident are bobbing and weaving to
cover the inadequacies of the Commonwealth agencies. It is very
sad to see that this very specialized guide dog was considered 'a
nothing', and therefore no accident report filed. This man and
his dog should be considered 'one and the same' as he is an
integral part of his daily functional life. And the fact that
this happened to another guide dog a short time before without
any action taken to repar the escalator, could have prevented the
second dog from being severely injured. Just too bad. I hope this
is appropriately resolved.
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Ginger Bennett Kutsch
Morristown, NJ