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Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

911 Call Abuse By The 911 Call Taker?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:52:50 -0400 by

A 17 year old girl uses foul language.

Shocking?

No.

A 911 caller uses foul language.

Shocking?

No.

Yet, for some reason the 911 call taker for the Lincoln Park Police Department loses his cool and hangs up on the caller. Again and again.*

She runs down the street to the police station to try to get what she was calling for – an ambulance – and she is arrested.

That’ll teach her to call 911 about a medical emergency!

Here is the video with the recording of the 911 calls.

I agree that the girl, Adrianne Ledesma, sure does not seem to get the picture, either. Her father just had brain surgery and is now having a seizure, but she is worried about suing the guy on the phone. Maybe Dad should sue over this, but have a lawyer prevent his daughter from receiving any of this money.

It is not at all clear if the father is still seizing, or was ever seizing, or how often this happens, but this kid needs to start acting responsibly. If you have a family member with a medical condition, you need to learn to deal with it, not try to figure out whom you might sue for giving you a hard time.

The police officer, Seargent Robert McFarlan, must have a doozy of an excuse. He has been working for 20 years (5 years longer than Daniel Martin). He may not have any skeletons in his closet. He refused to comment.

What is his job?

His job is to dispatch the appropriate people to deal with whatever emergencies occur during his shift. His job is to calm down people on the other end of the phone, so that he may obtain the information he needs. Once he knows there is a request for an ambulance, he should start sending the ambulance. I am guessing that Lincoln Park has Enhanced 911, which is a form of caller ID. He does not know what is going on, but there has been a request for an ambulance.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could refuse to deal with people if they used less than polite language. I wouldn’t even get to a lot of the calls with the language used by some of my partners.

Assuming that we did make it to the call without expletive, the families, by-standers, and patients have been known to use the occasional indelicate expression. I have been yelled at repeatedly for taking too long because the patient was not white. Not that dispatch provides that kind of information, or even asks for it, but some people have priorities that have nothing to do with the patient. They just use the patient as an excuse to cause trouble, such as to sue.

The malice of these by-standers is not the fault of the patient.

This is a part of the job. If we feel threatened, it is appropriate to leave until police arrive and deal with whatever violence/potential violence is there. Of course, if I am on the other end of a phone, am I in any danger?

The refreshing news on this is that the Chief of Police has been open about dealing with this. This is not the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

It is important to note that Sgt. McFarlan has had a career of meritous service, has never had a disciplinary action until this incident, and was suspended without pay for two weeks and sent for training after this incident.[1]

Never had a disciplinary action in 20 years? How many people can claim that? But what happened on this call?

As part of this post, I would like to include another pointer. The times when you should probably not get yelled at for using foul language include just about every legitimate reason to call 911. There is no justification for 911 acting as Miss Manners, especially since Seargent McFarlan uses obscenity during the 911 call, too.

Here is an imaginary call to the 911 Hypocrisy Line.

911 – Hello, 911 Hypocrisy Line, how may I help you?

Caller – I need a *&%$#@ ambulance.

911 – Hold on there, Missy. I’m not gonna put up with that $#!+. You’re going to have to call back again and act like a professional this time.

911 call takers do put up with a lot of abuse on the phone. I am not defending abuse of 911 in any way. I wonder how many times they hear the words, Thank you, at the end of a call. They deserve our thanks. They do not deserve to be lumped in with the few who make the news for bad judgment.

Hat tip to Medic(three).

The Wall Street Journal has a story about this and a couple of law suits about two other 911 calls in Michigan. What’s Going On With 911 Operators In Michigan?

Footnotes:

^ * David Konig has a different take on whether the hang up is by the 911 call taker or the caller. If the caller hung up, what was she thinking? That is a rhetorical question. We all know that she was not thinking. Maybe it is due to the emergency, but what does hanging up accomplish? The link is below [1]

^ 1 Lincoln Park 911 Operator Denies Service Over Swear Words
David Konig
Article

For those not familiar with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and Daniel Martin references, use the search box in the upper left of the browser window. You will get more information than you ever wanted on OHP and Daniel Martin.

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Filed Under: Common Sense, Critical Judgment, Heresy, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Tagged With: , , ,

Happy Independence Day – Thank You Thomas Paine

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:22:35 -0400 by

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.[1]

So begins the publishing success that was the equivalent of Harry Potter in the 18th Century. This is not a work of fiction. This is not something that deals with magic and fantasy. And yet it persuaded many people to risk everything for a goal that was considered pure fantasy at the time. A bunch of colonies were going to unify and rebel against Great Britain. The opinion of many of the colonists was that such a plan would be nothing but a Great Folly.

What convinced these colonists to risk everything?

Let me be clear on everything. Their lives. Their property. The lives and property of their family members. Torture. Not waterboarding, but the organ failure producing torture of places that are not America. This was not simply going all in in a game of poker. This all in was limited only by the imagination of one’s captors. They were going to engage in treason.

You don’t really think they were endangering their families by rebelling, do you?

Section. 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.[2]

Corruption of Blood?

It sounds dramatic. It is.

English Crim. Law. The incapacity to inherit, or pass an inheritance, in consequence of an attainder to which the party has been subject

When this consequence flows from an attainder, the party is stripped of all honors and dignities he possessed, and becomes ignoble.[3]

Of course, all of that presumes that the family is still alive to contest this in court. It also presumes that their property hasn’t been given away, or sold. That probably presumed too much for the time.

The best selling book in the colonies in the 18th Century. Common Sense.

Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘TIS TIME TO PART.[1]

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.[1]

We have taken this idea of security and expanded it to mean a security blanket. Those who fought to separate from England would be embarrassed at the depths to which we have sunk in our risk paranoia. There is no freedom that some many would not sacrifice for the delusion of complete safety.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered;[1]

Outside of Corruption of Blood and a few other technical terms, the document creating the eventual government of the United States of America is simple and resistant to disorder. Contemporary legislation is in a whole different category.

The Bill of Rights is a bunch of restrictions on the government. These restrictions make it more difficult for the government to lock you up. A side effect is that it is also more difficult for the government to lock up bad people. Pick pockets, embezzlers, thieves, rapists, child rapists, murderers. All of them are protected by the Bill of Rights.

Did the people, who just risked everything, not realize the consequences of what they were doing? Did child rapists not exist back then?

They understood.

They understood that the rights of the citizens are more important than the desire to punish the guilty. When we become more concerned with punishing the guilty, than with protecting the Constitution that protects us, then the tyrants have won.

When something is presented as being for the children, it is because this is an attempt to get around logical debate and appeal to emotion. There are places where the people have little, or no, protection from their government.

China.

North Korea.

Cuba.

China may need to give up some of that control. Why? The benefits of a market that is open to countries with more freedom. The inability to suppress information. The desire, of so many of their citizens, for freedom. Maybe we should have an exchange program with China.

Send us your citizens, who are yearning to be free. We will send you our citizens, who are yearning to avoid risk.

Win and Win.

We are a nation of immigrants that has given up and decided to play it safe. We are trying to trade off our liberty for the illusion of safety. We do not deserve that liberty. We need to bring in people who do – the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Cubans, and others. What do we lose by sending them our people – people who do not understand what they have?

We are having a mid-life crisis. Rather than trying to recapture freedoms, we have given up. We want to crawl back into the womb and hide. What if somebody hurts my feelings with mean words. What if somebody hurts my child? What if somebody hurts me? That is the price of being an adult. That is the price of living in the real world.

There are plenty of people, who will tell us they can protect our feelings.

Liars.

There are plenty of people, who will tell us they can protect our children.

Liars.

There are plenty of people, who will tell us they can protect us from the big bad terrorists.

Liars.

Maybe we should educate our citizens. Most of these citizens are just citizens because of the accident of being in the US when they took their first breath. Maybe we should educate our citizens about what others gave up for their freedoms.

Visit some war memorials. Read of the mistreatment that led people to move here. Read of the mistreatment that led people to fight for freedom. Freedom can just as easily be lost. Too many people sacrificed everything they had for us to barter away freedoms for a little temporary safety.

Freedom isn’t easy.

Footnotes:

^ 1 Common Sense
by Thomas Paine, initially published anonymously
Links include the postscript, which is dated 2/14/1776, only just more than a month from the first printing.
Full Text, in several formats, from Gutenberg
Maybe you don’t want to read this, but would prefer to listen to someone else reading.
Full Text Audio, in several formats, from Librivox

^ 2 Constitution for the United States of America
Article. III.
Full Text

^ 3 Corruption Of Blood
The ‘Lectric Law Library’s Lexicon
Definition

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Filed Under: Common Sense, Heresy Tagged With: ,

FBI Most Wanted List Addition – Domestic Terrorist

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:29:38 -0400 by

Should be Considered Armed and Dangerous.

The FBI is offering a reward of up to $250,000 for information leading directly to the arrest of Daniel Andreas San Diego.

An animal rights extremist wanted for allegedly bombing two San Francisco-area office buildings in 2003 has been added to our Most Wanted Terrorists list—the first domestic terrorist to be included with international terrorists such as Usama Bin Laden.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 31, should be considered armed and dangerous. His domestic acts of terror were planned to destroy property, to cause economic hardship for the companies he targeted, and possibly to take lives—one of his bombs was laced with nails to create potentially deadly shrapnel. We are offering a reward of up to $250,000 for information directly leading to his arrest.[1]

Farther down they state:

The first bombing occurred on August 28, 2003, outside Chiron Life Science Center in Emeryville, California. When authorities responded, a second bomb was discovered, but exploded before it could be disarmed, raising the possibility that the device was planted specifically to target first responders.[1]

Bombs wrapped in nails. One did not go off until after first responders arrived?

We should probably assume that it was just an accident. He didn’t mean to hurt anybody. He is only protecting animals. After all, bombs send a message of piece – a piece here, a piece there PEACE.

He may be celebrating Earth Day by blowing something up.

Seems as if this guy has studied the methods of other terrorists and wants to kill as many people as possible. Destroy, maim, Kill – no mercy until you get what you want. These groups value animal lives above human lives. They are not interested in just peaceful political means of convincing you, although they do try to convince you that they are peaceful.

The goal of terrorism is Terror.

Some of the research I cite in my posts is animal research. While it would be nice to not use animals in research, there are some things about toxicity that you cannot learn from a computer model. There are some things that you do not want learned by experimentation on people. At least, not until after some semblance of safety has been established with animals. Maybe he will target my blog. Here terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

Some of what I eat is from animals that have been killed to feed me. Some of what I wear, belt and boots, is from the hide of an animal that was killed to clothe me. When I had a motorcycle, OK more than one, I wore leathers to protect me from leaving my skin on the pavement. I don’t want to be the one killing the animals, but I do not deny where the food and clothing come from. I do not deny that there are animals killed to do research.

I wonder what people who actually do take care of animals think about all of these animals first organizations. Ambulance Driver points out that they are mostly just a bunch of boobs. Actually, he is a bit more forceful than that. since it is too short to clip just a sample, here is his entire post[2]:

Subversive Thought Of The Week…


…simply because I despise sanctimony in its varied forms…

PETA has killed far more dogs than Michael Vick.

Compared to these [finger quotes] animal rights activists [/finger quotes], he’s a piker.

Ambulance Driver is no stranger to animals, since he trains dogs (in addition to being a paramedic, instructor, blogger, author, lecturer, gun enthusiast, father, and all around lazy guy). No, he doesn’t train dogs to fight. He trains dogs because he loves working with dogs.

That is a conservative point of view. What about liberal people from the research community? Surely they must support terrorism to protect animals. Drug Monkey has similar sentiments, expressed with a few more paragraphs of information.

This is a great and very welcome step in the PR game with respect to Animal Rights Activist wackanut terrorism. After all, placing on the Most Wanted list…does that really change how hard the US and international authorities are looking? What it most certainly does do is raise the public recognition and understanding of Animal Rights terrorism, who these people really are and what is being supported when they send their money to PETA and the HSUS (which is not your local Humane Society, as much as they’d like you to think that they are). Perhaps it can open the eyes of celebrities who support, perhaps unknowingly, these Luddite, anti-science, fringe element activities.[3]

Also, today is the day for Pro-Test @UCLA. This is a rally in support of animal research. It is a non-violent rally, unless somebody from one of the animal protection organizations plants a bomb, or engages in some other terrorism.

These animal rights organizations are not much different from Theodore Kaczynski[4], the friendly neighborhood Unabomber.

Do not donate money to organizations that support terrorism, just because they have people who look good naked, or have cute pictures of kittens, or because they make you feel guilty about some poor little animal. They are only taking your money. They are not making things better. Lolcats is cheaper and more humane. PETA – People for the Unethical Treatment of Humans is just the most visible of these[5]. The Humane Society of the United States is not far behind in misuse of money[6], [7]. And then there is the ALF, not a mannequin from Melmac, but the most activist of these organizations. Terrorists just aren’t nice people. Supporting terrorists is not nice, either.

Footnotes:

^ 1 New Most Wanted Terrorist – First Domestic Fugitive Added to List
fbi.gov
4/21/09
FBI announcement

^ 2 Subversive Thought Of The Week
Ambulance Driver
Article

^ 3 FBI Places Alleged ARA Terrorist on Most Wanted List
Drug Monkey
Article

^ 4 Theodore Kaczynski – Unabomber
Wikipedia
Article

^ 5 7 Things You Didn’t Know About PETA
PETA Kills Animals
Article

^ 6 ALF Terrorist John Goodwin: HSUS Dogfight Czar
John Goodwin Exposed
Article

^ 7 What IS The Humane Society of the United States?
Bark ‘n’ Scratch Newsletter
Scroll down to What IS The Humane Society of the United States?
Newsletter

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Filed Under: Common Sense, Ethics, Heresy, Research Tagged With: , , ,

Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:27:51 -0500 by

Photo credit

Another scientific breakthrough. Can a cure for cancer be far behind. Not that kind of behind.

Men see bikini-clad women as objects, psychologists say

Brain areas linked with handling tools respond to images of women in bikinis
They also remember these women’s bodies better than those of fully-clothed women
Future research could look at if women depersonalize men in certain situations

As a man, who has been known to not immediately avert his eyes from an image of a non-burkha wearing woman, allow me to translate.

Brain areas linked with handling tools respond to images of women in bikinis

Pornography and tool handling are obviously intertwined. If you give a man a hammer, he thinks that just about every woman should be nailed with it.

They also remember these women’s bodies better than those of fully-clothed women

It is difficult to remember what one cannot see. On the other hand, with the proper tailoring much of the physique can be calculated by the astute anatomist.

Future research could look at if women depersonalize men in certain situations

It is scandalous that one could even suggest that these tools of arousal have minds of their own. To believe that, one would have to accept that Chippendales and similar clubs are not just visited by drag queens. These drag queens so good at make up, that the male strippers are unaware that the drag queens they are grinding on – are men. Clearly, the drag queen theory of arousal deserves equal time in the science classroom.

We are still left wondering if the line, She has great eyes, started with the burkha or with the bikini. Perhaps this is going to be used to justify new burkha laws. If the female arousal is shown to be true, in spite of what we all know about sugar and spice (the ingredients for little girls, not the sister act), there will probably be a demand for murkha laws.

Think of the benefit in being a mystery man trying to pick up a mystery woman, or mystery person, or person of mysterious gender. That isn’t a beer belly, I just like to carry my man purse in the front. No need to get a hotel room, since the burkha/murkha hides everything from view. You can now have intercourse right out in public and nobody will be able to prove it. You will have no idea if the person in the other urkha is who you think they are, if they are using protection, or even what their gender is. This will be the dawn of the Promiscuous Age. In the PA, no child will know who Pa is.

The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor “benevolent” sexism, which includes the belief that a woman’s place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.

And that isn’t the headline?

If I have only two ways to view women – at the stove, barefoot and pregnant or as castrating termagants – is it a surprise that I choose a third option? Maybe Princeton screens out men with other views on their admissions paperwork.

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Filed Under: Common Sense, Heresy, Research Tagged With: ,

California Supreme Court Rewrites Good Samaritan Law

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:40:53 -0500 by
Further explanation of the effect of California Good Samaritans Hunted to Extinction By Lawyers.

What is the purpose of a Good Samaritan law?

To protect by-standers from the legal consequences that apply under common law, if the by-stander is to intervene at the scene of an emergency.

Why do we want to do that?

Professional rescuers are not always available. Generally the first people to offer assistance are not professional rescuers.

But in the decision, the justices kept referring to this as affecting only medical personnel.

That is because they do not have a clue about EMS (Emergency Medical Services). We do provide medical care. To limit what we do to medical care is to be willfully ignorant. Working in EMS includes moving patients from potentially unsafe locations, even if not for the purpose of delivering care. This is what the defendant claims she was doing. Working in EMS usually includes transportation. Working in EMS sometimes even includes medical treatment.

So, pretending that there is a clear delineation between a medical emergency and “other” emergencies, demonstrates profound ignorance of the role of EMS?

Precisely. The majority decided that since this appears in the EMS section of the California Code, this only applies to medical emergencies and medical care.

Maybe I should refuse to do things that are not specifically medical. I could tell my boss, that the California Supreme Court has decided that these things are not a part of my job. I could even take the rescue equipment out of the ambulance. The stretcher, too.

Good luck with that.

So, we should just call 911, now that the law has been changed?

Why would you think that you are protected from any problems that result from your 911 call? The call is clearly not medical treatment.

What do you mean?

Once the justices start micro-parsing the letter of the law, there is no end to the amount of stupidity that they can come up with. For example, you call from a cellular phone, but it may connect to a tower in the next county. That county dispatches EMS to a similar address in their county.

If you had gone inside the residence to call, Enhanced 911 would most likely have connected you to the correct county and provided them with the correct address. If you go into the residence, they may claim that you damaged, or stole, some of their property. You may eventually prove otherwise, but who needs to go tip-toeing through this legal mine field?

Then this is the end of the road for Good Samaritans in California?

Not at all. While I am not fond of politicians, I expect that there will be a bit of a rush to address this in the beginning of the next legislative session. The Legislature is bound to be upset with the Supreme Court for completely undermining the intent of the law.

Getting a bit arrogant about this, aren’t you?

Watch what happens. The law will be rewritten. The new law will end up stating that it is not limited to emergency medical care or to the scene of a medical emergency.

Why do you think that will happen?

Because that was the way they wrote the law. That was their intent. 4/7 Supreme Court justices decided to change that. The Supreme Court was way out of line and the Legislature will want to correct that.

The Legislature may decide to limit the protection in some way, but they will not limit it to just medical care or just at scenes of medical emergencies. There is no reason that we should believe that the intent of this law was to protect medical incompetence, but punish any other incompetence, but that is the way the Supreme Court interprets the law.

Does anyone have any reason to believe differently?

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Filed Under: Ethics, Heresy Tagged With: ,

California Good Samaritans Hunted to Extinction By Lawyers

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 06:00:47 -0500 by
GruntDoc and Symtym have brought a California Supreme Court decision to the attention of a lot of people. This is an important bit of legal folderol, except it is not of little value. This can cost you a lot of money. In two posts, California gets even more screwed up: predictably, Good Samaritans (Decent People) hardest hit and More on the California Good Samaritan debacle, GruntDoc describes how he feels about these lawyers at play in the fields of the hourly rate.

California’s Good Samaritan Law and the Byzantine California Supreme Court decision,[1] that is an example of legal Three Card Monte, come from GruntDoc and Symptym. Ten gallon hat tip for all of this.

Well, I wasn’t going to be getting to sleep anyway, if this tedious and juvenile attempt at parsing the legislative intent didn’t put me to sleep. Perhaps it is the near toxic dose of caffeine that foiled their attempts at sedating readers of their decisions. The attempts to defy logic are not so easily explained.

First, I am not a lawyer.

Does that matter?

It shouldn’t. The goal of the Good Samaritan Law is simply to encourage people to help others, when professional rescuers are not already there. The extent of the encouragement is to make it difficult to be found at fault, in a law suit, for injuring the person they are trying to help. That’s it. Let me print it right here.

No person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission. The scene of an emergency shall not include emergency departments and other places where medical care is usually offered.[2]

And I should explain what the emergency was. It seems that the patient was partying with the defendant and others, smoking some marijuana, drinking some alcohol – the usual behavior of a fine upstanding citizen preparing to drive. The patient was not driving, but her car was involved in a crash in Topanga Canyon. A nice ride – when sober. I hesitate to speculate that being stoned and drunk had anything to do with the vehicle leaving the roadway. The Good Samaritan defendant was in another vehicle, why limited the stoned drunk driving, when you can form a caravan. She was also not driving. The second driver pulled over to assist (apparently he is not a lawyer). The defendant went to assist the passenger, pulled her from the vehicle, and did not move her away from the vehicle, although she claims that it was about to explode. The patient suffered an injury to her spine that resulted in paralysis. This decision makes no attempt to determine if pulling the patient from the vehicle has anything to do with the paralysis, whether leaving her in the vehicle would have made a difference. We do not know. The justices were just playing around with how many ways you could provide care dancing on the head of a pin. It’s what some justices think they are supposed to do. No mention is made of whether the justice in the majority were smoking marijuana at the time of the decision. If we were to emulate their reasoning, we might find them guilty of intoxication without any evidence., but by creatively and inconsistently twisting the intent of the possibly related laws.

I could give plenty of examples of the sleight of hand used by those in the majority, but it all boils down to this. They assume that when the word medical is used, or when the law is included in a medical section of the legal code, that is significant. That wording tells us exactly what was in the minds of the legislature. The legislators all think with one mind. They all vote together for exactly the same reasons. How could anyone ever suggest that there is discord in a legislative body. They vary from being elegant in their subtlety to making Dick and Jane books seem cryptic. Fortunately, the justices understand exactly what was in the mind of the legislators – It is not what the legislators wrote.

When these omniscient legislators leave out the word medical, we should not pay any attention to that. The legislators made their intent abundantly clear in vague language elsewhere. Only the interpretation that this is designed to encourage provision of medical care to someone who does not need rescuing, can be drawn from the law.

I will provide one quote from the dissent:

Thus, in the majority’s view, a passerby who, at the risk of his or her own life, saves someone about to perish in a burning building can be sued for incidental injury caused in the rescue, but would be immune for harming the victim during the administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation out on the sidewalk. A hiker can be sued if, far from other help, he or she causes a broken bone while lifting a fallen comrade up the face of a cliff to safety, but would be immune if, after waiting for another member of the party to effect the rescue, he or she set the broken bone incorrectly. One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim.[3]

The justices clearly did consider the contradiction between what the wording and their interpretation of the intent of the legislature. The dissenting justices also found for the plaintiff, but did not agree with the reasoning of the majority. The dissenters felt that the behavior of the defendant, apparently stoned and drunk, was not consistent with her claim that she thought the vehicle was about to blow up.

Now that this is quite clear, you should understand that the first rule of the House of God[4] (as modified for pre-hospital use) should be – At the scene of an emergency the first procedure is to take your own pulse call a lawyer for a consultation about whether this is an emergency, whether the emergency is medical, and whether you are trained to the level of an untrained person. In other words, you should film this, because a person dying on film could be worth some money to you. If you do anything that is not medical, but is an attempt to help, you should expect to pay money to anybody who might have an injury. At least, if you have any money left after paying for all of the lawyers.

I received my basic EMT and paramedic training in California. Nobody ever suggested such an interpretation of the Good Samaritan Law in any of my training. Our training was to help people. The specifically idiotic parts of the EMS law did receive special attention.

The Good Samaritan Law was written by a bunch of politicians. Suggesting that they were so careful in their wording in one place for a specific reason, while their vague wording in another place has no specific reasoning is ridiculous. The idea that they were thinking along these lines, these are the same politicians who write all of the other laws in California, is giving them too much credit. The law was written to encourage by-standers to help. As interpreted by this court, it has the opposite meaning – Do not help.

Footnotes:

^ 1 S152360
Van Horn v. Watson (or whatever they decide to call it)
Full Text PDF


^ 2 California Health And Safety Code Section 1799.102
Good Samaritan Law from onecle.com

^ 3 S152360
Van Horn v. Torti (or whatever they decide to call it, but how is that for an ironic name?)
p. 18 and 19/32 of the pdf counter.
Full Text PDF

^ 4 Rules of House of God
by Samuel Shem
some description from Respiratory Therapy 101: Just Keep Breathing in
Rule Three

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Filed Under: Common Sense, Ethics, Heresy Tagged With: ,