True Story…
The dispatch information was updated before we had even rolled our rig out onto the pad. Eye injury, no serious symptoms. Jodie shut down the lights and I informed dispatch that we’d be responding non-emergent.
Up stairs and inside the small two bedroom apartment, Samantha, our patient, was waiting on the couch, holding a hot compress to her swollen right eyelid. Mom worked calmly in the kitchen finishing diner for her other two children. Alan, Samantha’s father sat on the edge of his seat next to his daughter in a state of barely containable anxiety.
He had recently arrived home from work and his wife had informed him of the apparent infection in Samantha’s right eye. One look and he was on the phone to us. Now he breathed rapidly as he fumbled through a list of questions. What caused it? Could it damage her vision? Could she lose her eye? Could she go blind?
I cleared the engine to go back in service and sat down next to him. Over the next ten minutes we both explained what pink-eye was and how to take care of it. We talked about hot-compresses and how contagious the bacteria was going to be. We reviewed the typical course for such and infection. How to prevent it in the other kids. How likely it was that one of them already had it. And we discussed his plan for morning. (It involved asking a neighbor to drive them to a near-by clinic.)
Alan called 911 for pink-eye. And…(This part is bound to be controversial, depending on what kind of system you work in.) I never offered to take him to the emergency room. And he never asked.
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There really is a dizzying array of stuff we can do to get ourselves in legal hot water in EMS. I was considering a few this afternoon and I got this idea.
Let’s play a game. I’ll give you a whole list of scenarios and you match the legal transgression to the act. OK, that was a really boring and overly technical way to describe my game.
I’ll say what they did; you tell me what they did wrong. Sound like fun? I agree. Let’s begin.
Here are all the possible answers:
- Sounds OK to me
- Negligence
- Battery
- Abandonment
- Assault
Jot your answers down on a scrap of paper. I’ll be back on Thursday with my answers and the rationale behind them.
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The term “Good Samaritan” comes from the gospel of Luke. In the parable told by Christ, a Samaritan helped a Jew who had been beaten and robbed. At the time, the Samaritans and Jews were mortal enemies. Through the parable, Jesus attempts to redefine what it means to be a good neighbor.
Reading some recent conversations on the good Samaritan law in a few online forums, I’m reminded not of the biblical parable, but of the parable of the six blind men describing an elephant. Remember that one? One guy feels the side and thinks an elephant is like a wall, the other feels the tail and thinks an elephant is like to a rope? Initiating a discussion on the good Samaritan law in an online forum of EMTs is an invitation for confusion and scorn.
“It only applies to bystanders.”
“No it doesn’t! It only applies to EMS personnel.”
“And only if you’re off duty. Unless you’re a volunteer. And then only … no … wait.” And on and on.
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… It could happen to you
That’s what EMT Paul Casson of the Bronx is learning. On New Years Eve, Paul was waiting to drop off a five 
year old child at Lincoln Hospital. Per investigators, Paul got tired of waiting, so he decided to forge a signature on his run sheet and leave the child behind.
Apparently the child had non-life threatening injuries and Paul figured someone would be by shortly to take care of him. Now Paul is being charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Here’s the crazy part.
If he’s convicted, this guy could spend the next seven years in prison thinking about what it means to be an advocate for your patient. The good news is that most of us don’t need laws to tell us to take good care of people and protect them. But Paul’s story is certainly a good reminder.
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