Porch catastrophic injury: New York says it's up to you

Tonya Laramore watched in horror last August as her granddaughter Jermarih Cook, then 2, lay crying on the floor beneath the porch landing behind her West Town apartment. The child's mouth was full of blood after a rotted step collapsed under her weight and she fell 6 feet, Laramore said.

"Her tooth went up through the top of her lip and left a big hole," Laramore recalled. Before the accident, "We had called [the building property manager] to complain that the steps were loose and that some were missing and they never did anything."

City inspectors came out a few days after the accident, but a new porch wasn't installed until last month, she said.
In May, Douglas Ames was using the porch steps behind his second-floor apartment in Portage Park to take out the garbage when a landing plank gave way and he fell partially through, said John Q. Kelly, a New York catastrophic injury lawyer.