Another interesting tidbit to come out of the Rodriguez subway assault case is the damaging effect subway riding has on the knees.
Charles Johnson claimed Rodriguez beat him so severely that he’d been unable to return to work since.
Johnson is suffering, according to Dr. Howard Schwartz, a doctor retained by the defense, but not from an alleged beating.
Instead, Schwartz, who was paid $2,500 to examine Johnson’s medical records for the defense, said Johnson had “chronic degenerative osteoarthritis” in the knees caused by working as a conductor for 14 years.
“The knees are subject to trauma linked to the motion of side to side and front to back on the subway,” Schwartz testified. The pain Johnson, 59, is experiencing is “coming from arthritis.”
It does make sense that years of rocking back and forth on the trains would cause some damage over the years to a conductor. But, what about regular straphangers? Even if the combined time on the train every day is 30 minutes, does it add up? Are we all too going to face arthritis in the knees?
-- Chuck Bennett amNY.com
