Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lauren Pine, Member of Families for Safe Streets, on Commercial Waste Zones and Traffic Safety
2:26:05
·
155 sec
Lauren Pine, a member of Families for Safe Streets, shares her harrowing personal experience of being struck and severely injured by a dump truck, emphasizing the urgent need for implementing commercial waste zones to improve traffic safety in New York City.
- Pine lost her left leg and suffered extensive injuries, dramatically altering her life and career as a nurse.
- She argues that her accident was preventable and is a result of a system that endangers New Yorkers daily.
- Pine calls for the immediate implementation of Local Law 199, which established commercial waste zones, to prevent further tragedies.
Lauren Pine
2:26:05
Hello.
2:26:05
My name is Lauren Pine, and I am a member of Families for Safe Streets.
2:26:11
On November 2017, I was crossing the street in the crosswalk in the Lower East Side Of Manhattan with the light when I was struck and dragged by a dump truck.
2:26:26
I was brought to the hospital and put in a medically induced coma for four days while they tried to save my left leg.
2:26:33
They were unsuccessful due to infection and the entire leg at the hip was removed which is a rare amputation.
2:26:41
My life changed forever that day.
2:26:44
I was a working RN at Sloan Kettering Hospital and suddenly I was a patient in the ICU for three months at New York Presbyterian in the burn ICU.
2:26:55
Donor skin from my back was peeled off and used as a skin graft to cover my right remaining leg which is completely scarred and has extensive nerve damage which has led to me needing to use a wheelchair.
2:27:08
It's very difficult to use a prosthetic at this level of amputation.
2:27:12
It's a very tight hard plastic shell that you really have trouble breathing in, let alone lifting that 18 pound metal leg with nothing but your lower abdominal muscles.
2:27:26
I even need crutches with my prosthesis and I frequently fall so the wheelchair has become a better option for me despite the disability the difficulty of finding accessible places.
2:27:46
All of this was and is preventable.
2:27:50
It is a predictable result of a system that puts New Yorkers in danger every single day.
2:27:57
Think of all the times you're standing at a crosswalk and a big truck goes by you.
2:28:02
Too often, commercial waste vehicles like this one that hit me are traveling unnecessarily long distances over a single night, a problem the city council addressed five years ago by passing local law one ninety nine to create commercial waste zones.
2:28:18
But we are still waiting on 95% of the zones to be implemented and this inaction has led to the tragic death and serious injury of more New Yorkers.
2:28:30
This is unacceptable.
2:28:32
We must act now by putting New Yorkers safety first and implementing local law one ninety nine without delay.
2:28:39
Thank you for your time.