Originally Posted By OregonMouse


Finally, do not try to perform first aid on anyone else until you get training. A recent court case (here in Oregon) considered this negligence and that Good Samaritan law didn't apply. The case was where some completely untrained bystanders moved someone with a spinal injury without first stabilizing the spinal column, with the inevitable results.


Do you have a link to this case (or enough info that i could find it on lexis-nexis, etc.... I am curious as to the facts and findings.

The only similar case I could find in a cursory search was a CA case, in which the higher court (over)ruled that the good samaritan law did not apply to NON-medical care. In this case, had the person been performing medical care, they would have been immune from liability, but pulling someone from a wrecked car was not medical in nature. Nor did they exercise "due care" (which the good samaritan law provides an exception). http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S152360.PDF

Interestingly, in Baxter's dissent, he makes an analogy to backpackers... "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."
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