good Samaritan or emergency care doctrine

Specialties Emergency

Published

A nurse comes upon a traffick accident where there are injured unconscious people lying on the highway. The nurse is aware that first aid interventions are sanctioned by:

a. Good Samaritan act

B. Emergency care doctrine.

Thank you in advance for your help.

if you drive by a crash site (two or more vehicles acting stupid to cause a crash, no accident) and do not bother to stretch your neck and look, just drive on you will have no one to answer to, but your conscience.

on the other hand, if you happen to look and say “wow there is injuries and that one looks unconscious …” now technically you have started tx, initial assessment has been done.

now if you keep on driving we could call that abandonment….

what we need is to use common sense and ‘just do it!!’

it was just this lack of common sense and worrying about what act, statue, or law we might be treading on that brought the slow to no response to katrina.

a nyway, next time your first thought should be, - can i live with the decision i am about to make? if the answer is yes, then you have nothing to worry about.

just my 2cents:innerconf

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Of course if you are driving by an accident and decide not to stop and help and someone recognizes you and says "oh that lady/man is a nurse and they didn't stop to help"...you can get sued for that also. So, I guess you just can't win.

I don't believe you can be sued if you don't stop. In order to prove gross neg. you must have a duty to act. If you didn't stop, you have no Duty to act

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma.

You cannot be sued if you don't stop, nor can you be sued if you pull over to sit there and watch. And unless you're comfortable/familiar with prehospital care, I don't know why you'd want to. I'm an ER nurse and I don't stop at accident scenes.

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Specializes in Operating room..
You cannot be sued if you don't stop, nor can you be sued if you pull over to sit there and watch. And unless you're comfortable/familiar with prehospital care, I don't know why you'd want to. I'm an ER nurse and I don't stop at accident scenes.

This is what we were told during CPR training at the American Heart Association.

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma.

Also, the Good Samaritan Act does not mean that you can't be sued; anybody can sue for just about anything. What it does mean is that if you give care reasonable under the circumstances, ACCORDING TO ACCEPTED STANDARDS, then you'll be protected under state law. Is it worth all the time, money, and heartache of being dragged into court, having some lawyer drill you over these accepted standards? Are you sure you acted within these "accepted standards?"

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I think the law is different in each state. We were taught that once you get involved, you can't back out.

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Specializes in Emergency, Trauma.

That part is true too; if you stop and actually start caring for the pt., then you cannot leave the scene until you hand off to another professional, i.e. EMS.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency, Education, Informatics.
On another note, you could be in deep doo-doo if you stop to offer help and then hand off care to an EMT. If you take the patient (stop for a roadside assist), you stay with the patient to the ER, and hand over care to someone with a larger education than you. Please no flames, my hubby is an EMT and a great one, but as an RN with 4 years education and 15 years experience I can be held liable if something happens to the patient that I handed over to an EMT with 1 year of school no matter how much experience s/he has.

Not completly true. In most EMS juristictions, once EMS gets there you have no authority/responsibilities as a bystander. While this may not be true in all juristictions, the best bet is to research the laws and regulations in your location, so you iknow for sure.

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Specializes in CCRN, CNRN, Flight Nurse.
On another note, you could be in deep doo-doo if you stop to offer help and then hand off care to an EMT. If you take the patient (stop for a roadside assist), you stay with the patient to the ER, and hand over care to someone with a larger education than you. Please no flames, my hubby is an EMT and a great one, but as an RN with 4 years education and 15 years experience I can be held liable if something happens to the patient that I handed over to an EMT with 1 year of school no matter how much experience s/he has.

Unless you know the techs on the EMS crew (and they know you), if you attempted to maintain control of the patient after they took over, most likely, you would end up in 'bracelets' for interferring :nono: with the duties of EMS personal (at least on my scene you would). Not to mention, you have no protocols/standing orders to act under. They do. A BSN and 15 years experience doesn't mean squat in prehospital medicine. :rolleyes: If you have any doubt, check with your local EMS, as well as your state BON, to see what their protocol is for handling 'bystander' RNs, MDs, and unfamiliar off duty EMS personal. You'll be surprised. :idea:

PS...... EMS experience = 18+ years (12+ as EMT-P)

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Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.

Totally need to hand off to the trained 1st responders (EMS) - I know I would practically kiss their feet for taking over!

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Specializes in Emergency.

The question is not very clearly drafted. "Good Samaritan" rules are created by state statute and so can be different in each state. In general, these laws say that any person who volunteers their help is immune from a claim that they negligently provided care. You must be a true volunteer. Someone with a duty to help, like an EMS responder, would not be covered. Also, the acts protect the volunteer only from claims of negligence. If the claim is gross negligence or intentional harm, then the Good Samaritan protection doesn't apply. (Gross negligence is usually defined as an act with the knowledge that you are likely to cause harm.) .... Now, the emergency care doctrine is usually considered the same as implied consent. Normally, any person can refuse care. If someone is unconscious, a caregiver is entitled to assume that the patient would want care and would give consent. The rule doesn't really have anything to do with volunteering or not. ..... So, neither rule really "sanctions" care - but of the two, I'd guess that (b) is closer.

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I have stopped to help at accident scenes a few times, always if there is an accident. I have never had to do CPR thank God! One time at Wal Mart found a gentleman having a seizure on the floor by the litter. I just helped him out until the EMS got there, gave them the information I could and left. I did not have any negative results, but felt better for helping those people. It is difficult when you stop though, because sometimes you never know.

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