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Sat Jan 10 09:03:56 GMT 2009

On top of all that, it the vast majority of spinal cord damage is caused by
the initial impact of the injury.  

It is EXTREMELY RARE that a victim of an MVC sustains an UNSTABLE injury to
the Spinal Column with intact neurology that later suffers neurological
damage due to mishandling of initial responders.  

Although we all have these RARE cases in our "institutional memory", that
were initially moving their legs and lost their motor function after being
miss-manipulated by care providers, they are so rare that one can count them
on one hand over a period of a lifetime. My experience (in 25 years) in
dealing with trauma patients is 2 cases.  This, compared to dozens of cases
of paraplegics and quadriplegics from the onset and hundreds of unstable
spinal column injuries that stayed neurologically intact with or without
spinal protection.  

The chances are that in this case too, the patient was neurologically
impaired from the onset and the poor "Good Samaritan" is being blamed for
nothing.  

The American legal system enables the largest democracy in the world to
function.  However, if the public (society) puts up with this kind of absurd
verdicts and not close the loopholes in the laws that make these stupid
decisions possible, it probably deserves to be left alone and die on the
streets while everyone around will observe and wait for the EMS to arrive.

Mickey

-----Original Message-----
From: trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org [mailto:trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org]
On Behalf Of Marty Munro
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 9:07 AM
To: Trauma & Critical Care mailing list
Subject: RE: Calififornia ruling against Good Samaritans

As a paramedic, I have had countless cases where I have responded to a MVC
where patients or bystanders have been worried about "leaking fluids" and
vehicles exploding and have quickly and dangerously removed persons from the
vehicle.  Of course, quite often the fluid that is leaking is coolant or
transmission fluid, but the average person does not know the difference, and
as they have seen in many movies I'm sure, cars can just spontaneously blow
up. Although from an emergency responder's perspective the people are of
course overeacting, we must understand that the majority of people do not
have the training and knowledge that we hold. If they did, probably 90% of
the 911 calls for ambulances wouldn't be placed. However, these people are
just trying to help. And what do all first aid manuals say in the first
chapter where they talk about scene safety? Only move the person if they are
at risk of being further hurt. I suppose the judge in this case has
 never taken a first aid course. So, if this is written in a first aid
manual, is it considered medical? 

I know that many of my colleagues always say to never attempt to help anyone
when off-duty because you are not covered under your employer's insurance. 
Although I am not one to jump in and yell "I am a paramedic, can I help?"
every time someone scrapes their knee or is involved in a minor fender
bender, I think it is within the nature of most emergency responders to want
to help people, regardless if they are on-duty or not. 

Although I do not wish bad things upon anybody (most of the time) wouldn't
it be ironic if this judge were to one day be trapped in his burning
Mercedes, or fall off his yacht while bystanders watched him and said "I'm
sorry, a judge ruled once  that I can be sued for helping you if it is not
medical treatment" while the judge pleads for help? Just a thought. 

--- On Fri, 1/9/09, Michael Stein M.D. <mgstein at bezeqint.net> wrote:

From: Michael Stein M.D. <mgstein at bezeqint.net>
Subject: RE: Calififornia ruling against Good Samaritans
To: "'Trauma & Critical Care mailing list'" <trauma-list at trauma.org>
Received: Friday, January 9, 2009, 12:54 AM

Yep,
The stupid legal system of the US of A.
Dad

-----Original Message-----
From: trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org [mailto:trauma-list-bounces at trauma.org]
On Behalf Of Jules
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 5:32 AM
To: paramedicine; Trauma &amp, Critical Care mailing list;
texasems-l at yahoogroups.com; cpr-first-aid-ems-instructors at googlegroups.com
Subject: Calififornia ruling against Good Samaritans

 Interesting article...check it out!!

http://www.ems1.com/survivability/articles/446477
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Calififornia ruling against Good Samaritans