Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the law in this thread, Fun fact! We didn't use to have these laws. As early as the 2000's you could very much still be sued for intervening and saving a person's life.
However, as expected, there were a lot of suits against medical professionals trying to do their jobs as well as civilians thinking they'd done the right thing, which resulted in a damned if you did, damned if you didn't situation regarding medical care. You could be sued for failing to save, and sued for saving. So in the US, there are now Duty to Save laws.
Duty to Save means if you are actively working (duty to Save does NOT apply if you are off the clock, not actively working) as a firefighter, EMS, nurse, doctor, career in which your contract puts you in a rescue position or similar you have the Duty to save, it is your responsibility to intervene and provide life saving assistance and you cannot be sued for it unless your actions result in permanent injury of the patient due to you being careless or making mistakes (Malpractice). An injury or disability resulting from the trauma they were treated for would not count for Malpractice, and Malpractice is extremely fact specific.
Duty to Save laws are very fact specific and can have certain stipulations or loopholes that are specific to your location/state but in general EMS/Firefighters. Etc can no longer be personally sued for saving the life of a suicidal person.
I learned about this during lifeguard training. The instructor made it very clear that if you weren’t on the clock you had to get consent to save them or wait for them to go unconscious so that you couldn’t be sued.
Imagine waiting next to a kid, waiting for them to pass out from choking on food, and only after helping them. I get why the law is there but I feel like they couldve done better
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u/RealAbstractSquidII Aug 13 '21 edited Aug 13 '21
Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the law in this thread, Fun fact! We didn't use to have these laws. As early as the 2000's you could very much still be sued for intervening and saving a person's life.
However, as expected, there were a lot of suits against medical professionals trying to do their jobs as well as civilians thinking they'd done the right thing, which resulted in a damned if you did, damned if you didn't situation regarding medical care. You could be sued for failing to save, and sued for saving. So in the US, there are now Duty to Save laws.
Duty to Save means if you are actively working (duty to Save does NOT apply if you are off the clock, not actively working) as a firefighter, EMS, nurse, doctor, career in which your contract puts you in a rescue position or similar you have the Duty to save, it is your responsibility to intervene and provide life saving assistance and you cannot be sued for it unless your actions result in permanent injury of the patient due to you being careless or making mistakes (Malpractice). An injury or disability resulting from the trauma they were treated for would not count for Malpractice, and Malpractice is extremely fact specific.
Duty to Save laws are very fact specific and can have certain stipulations or loopholes that are specific to your location/state but in general EMS/Firefighters. Etc can no longer be personally sued for saving the life of a suicidal person.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue#:~:text=A%20duty%20to%20rescue%20is,or%20death%20without%20being%20rescued.