Some time back, there was a news article about a kid who had a severe asthma attack at school. He/she had forgotten his/her inhaler. IIRC, the teacher called for help, and as the kid started turning blue or something, another asthmatic child ran over and told the kid to use her inhaler, so the kid was still breathing when paramedics arrived. The school had a cow. Neither of the kids' parents had a problem with this solution, just the school.

So, what do you do if you have the means to fix a potentially life-threatening problem, but do nothing? Brain death comes in 3-5 minutes, paramedics sometimes take more time to get there due to location.

Has America reached the point where the fear of being sued surpasses keeping an innocent alive?

I offer this question out of curiosity. I know what *I* would do, as I prefer to be able to sleep at night.

Since we have a couple of attorneys here, I thought their insight might be interesting.

Sue

I have posted back & forth with doug, and I will be posting a fairly long post in the near future which will hopefully answer you questions.

Short answer: help them live.

A natural human response to someone in trouble is to try and help. However, using one persons medication to aid another may not be a wise idea. All medications are prescribe based on type of illness, severity, and body size of patient. Not all inhalers are the same and what works for one person could prove dangerous or deadly for another. Case in point, subject A is having chest pains, subject B has Nitro which he takes for chest pain and gives some to subject A. Unknown to subject B is the fact that subject A has used Viagra some four hours before. Both medications are vaso-dialators which dialate blood vessels and cause a drop in blood pressure. The nitro causes a major drop in subject A's blood pressure from which he does not recover. Unless you are trained in the indications/contra-indications of a given drug and know what questions to ask a patient, don't give drugs. In the case of the child with an asthma attack, basic airway support measures until the arrival of medical care would have been a better choice. If you don't already know them, learn them. In addition, it seems pretty irresponsible of the child's parents to have allowed him/her to go school without assuring he/she had their medication.

Most school policies are getting WAY on the wrong side of ridiculous, if not counter-productive, if not dangerous. Parents, teachers, and tax paying citizens need to remember that they are also VOTERS who elect school boards. Tell the elected board what you expect and demand, then vote accordingly... get involved, or don't bi... complain.

Troy

Hopefully the school did not act punitively towards any of the participants. If any punishment or written censure occurred, the parents would probably want to have it rescinded or nullified. Working with the principal, the local superintendent of public instruction, or elected school board, in that order, would be my approach. Bureaucracies do not approve of novel or creative solutions. They require standardized, pre-approved procedures and techniques. Mere oral, unrecorded criticism is probably not worth the bother of a defense. Hiring a lawyer might be indicated, but the advisability of that would depend the gravity of the school's reaction. A truly obnoxious school might require legal action, but of course that would be expensive. If the school is too difficult, switching schools might be a consideration. Conceivably the schools policies may have become so unrealistically intolerant that they may be civilly liable for their irresponsibility in impeding treatment to the children in their care.

In my own family, when we have experienced problems with the schools, my wife (a dietitian with a lot of business management savvy) usually handles and successfully resolves the matters. If it is serious, she holds me in reserve as an implicit threat (of legal action). Alternately, the parents play good cop, bad cop. That can also be effective.

One good thing about living in a representative democracy, is that our governing officials are inclined to be responsive. Otherwise they tend to be voted out of office. Popularity of their actions and constituent service is what keeps them in office.

Although asthma is both frightening and miserable, it is not usually life-threatening. Most asthma inhalant medication are pretty standardized and often over the counter products. The likelihood of an adverse reaction in what I presume was an elementary school student seems remote.

Legal Disclaimer: Obviously this post is not meant to provide legal advice, legal representation or relationship, and none exists or is provided. I am not admitted to practice law in any state other than California and am neither doing nor intending to do so. I limit my practice to civil law, and do not practice criminal law. Anyone wanting legal advice or representation should seek his own lawyer admitted to practice law in the prospective client's jurisdiction. Obviously this discussion is missing a lot of factual information. Moreover, we do not know how accurate the reports actually are. We are assuming that our information correct. We are discussing this matter only for the limited purpose of exploration of survival and campfire topics on this forum.

Anyway, those are my thoughts,

John

Love your disclaimer. That's a keeper.

When I was a kid, all the asthmatics in my class knew exactly what each other was taking - we would compare colours of inhalers, dosage etc. So in the situation described, often the best person to sort it would be the fellow classmate with asthma.

Albuterol is the most commonly prescribed "rescue inhaler". It is very safe, and very effective. It is not, however, over-the-counter. Most likely BECAUSE it is so effective- anybody who needs it really needs to be monitored by a doctor. I would have no problem loaning my inhaler to someone who has an attack, while advising them to see a doctor.

I find it ironic our children suffer a pandemic of asthma conditions, behavioral disorders etc and the world applies bandaid solutions of inhalers and ritalin instead of cleaning up the root causes of worldwide chemical pollutants. It is widely thought the use of lead ceramics led to a decline in roman mental health. I can only guess what drugs or chemicals produced our current crop of Caligulas. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

So much wisdom in so few words... you've done it again Chris.

I am a Paramedic. I keep a bag in my truck that has a number of items (IV sets, Saline, Lac. Ringers bags, Epi-pens, Benedryl, etc) If it were a true life threatning emergency I would do whatever I could.

When I was on active service it was made very clear we were obligated to render assistance in any emergency until proper authorities arrived with greater resources( including skill) To do anything less, if observed fell under the civilian concept of Depraved Indifference and several articles of the UCMJ. As a civilian, I am becoming almost as frightened of the legal fallout as the adrenal rush and pavlovian response to act. I recently evacuated a few horses during a local brushfire next to the 101 freeway. I had the skill, a familiar gametrail escape route and a safe evacuation point( a fenced tennis court.) I even had the permission of the local CHP and Fire Department who know me. 3, 1200 lb frightened animals are the last thing an allready taxed firecrew and CHiPS shutting down a major freeway need running around in blind fear. My thanks? One of the horses suffered a pretty nasty looking wound to the cannon bone of a rear leg. It took the DVM all of 20 minutes to clean up the mess. It's going to take me a formal appearance in court. The owners called Animal Control and I am being sued. My own horses were inspected by the Agency that has called on me countless times to 'volunteer' during major fires. They have a photo of me standing waistdeep in the surf controlling 2 burned horses during the Malibu fire. Now I know why people hide behind tinted windows <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Just a crazy thought - can't you countersue, on the grounds that *their* animal put you at risk?

Seems we have a society in that people won't take responsibility for their own actions and want too blame others for what they do wrong. Here you tried to protect their animals in a bad situation, and they are suing you. What a loser owner.

I saw a nice Akita pup get hit by a car, called animal control – who said it would be several hours before they could get there. I took the suffering pup to a emergency DVM and had him treated. Took the pup home and called the humane society, who contacted the owner 2 days later. All the owner did was [censored] about the cost of the treatment that I asked to be reimbursed for. It was less than the offered reward for the pup. After the owner refused to pay, I owned the pup. He became a good friend for a long time.

Good luck, Chris.

My first responder is long since expired, and I have nightmares about this kind of thing.

Here is one of the original news items about this incident:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/100803_local_inhaler.html

These weren't younger children, as I had assumed (I was reading this in the paper upside down, originally), but two 15-yr-olds, who used the same medication, and had permission from parents to use the other's medication if a problem arose.

The boy was expelled and charged with a felony. I couldn't find much further information on this case -- the girl was removed from the public school by her parents & put in a private school, but the last I could find, the boy was expelled, arrested, put in jail and was still being charged with a felony.

In looking for this article, I found others where the usual action by the schools was to confiscate the inhalers and keep them locked up in the office somewhere. If a kid needs his in a hurry, too bad!

Most of these problems are taking place in public schools, with their usual fix-everything, "zero-tolerance", nose in the air insanity.

In a related article, a mother said that if a student put a plastic bag over a teacher's head for even a few seconds, he would be charged with assault, but the schools see nothing wrong with doing virtually the same thing with their students.

Sue

Chris, in general I agree with you, but one of the most interesting studies of recent times found that the rate of asthma in Sweden (majorly green country) far exceeded that of East Germany (industrial smog). This appears counter intuitive and I'm not aware of any explanation for it.

My own (and my son's) asthma has been controlled without drugs for many years now, basically after we removed wall to wall carpets from our life and changed from a modern 'seal all the draught points and use central heating' house to an old, notionally dusty, but well ventilated house.

Asthma in the west needs investigating by intelligent people who do not have a drug to push.

Andy

I looked a little more. The boy who lent his inhaler (to his girl friend who used the identical inhaler) was the one expelled and arrested. According to the news article, within 2 days the criminal charge was dropped and he was allowed to return to school. For some incomprehensible reason his parents instead opted to home-school him. Gee, I wonder why. This was obviously a situation calling for a good lawyer representing the boy.

The later news report can be found at http://freerepublic.info/focus/f-news/999350/posts

I periodically teach a class on Constitutional rights and obligations (BSA First Class requirement #5). One of the things I emphasize to my students is never under any circumstances to admit to any possible criminal wrongdoing to anyone who potentially may perform law enforcement functions. Also, I stress the importance of never talking with law enforcement authorities re any potentially criminal investigation into your behavior in the absence of your own lawyer. Minor traffic violations are the only exception.

John

You did a good thing. It is sad and sobering to realize the sort of poeple the owner represents outnumber us. Or make more noise, or file more lawsuits, or something. Sigh.

-- Craig

As I recall, the entire legal landscape changed when the courts ruled tobacco companies could be sued for smokers' deaths and health problems.

That decision was pure insanity that killed personal accountability and opened the lawsuit floodgates.

If you smoke, you decide to take that action and take the consequences. That's what we adults do. The ruling basically sees us as children.

-- Craig

Kinda' makes ya wonder sometimes, don't it?

That's just pathetic... we truly deserve to go the way of the Roman Empire... I just hope I and mine can get clear before it happens, good luck to the rest of you <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Well, I'm gonna be the devil's advocate here. First of all, it appears that the girl was able to walk to the nurse's office, so her attack, while bad, did not appear to be life-threatening. Second, they could easily have phoned 911 from the nurse's office and gotten emergency medical permission from a doctor if it was necessary. Third, the fact that the parents had given permission is irrelevant, unless one of the parents is a doctor; if it was that much of a concern to them, they should have talked it over with a physician and given each of the kids permission in writing, and even provided the school with a copy. (I know, hindsight is 20-20).

Fourth, it appears to have been the police, not the school, which arrested the youth. so blaming the school authorities may have been unfair. (Granted, the laws in the US nowadays are getting ridiculous - but giving someone prescription medications when you are not qualified to do so, and without medical approval, is illegal and for good reason.)

Fifth, as was pointed out, the charges were dropped within two days. (It appears the boy was charged, given a date to appear in court, and released, rather than being hauled off in handcuffs.)

It may seem unfair, but the school has only the teen's word for it that the prescriptions are identical, and therefore, IMO, they were duty bound to report the incident to the authorities.

If the parents had discussed this with their doctor and provided the school with written permission, rather than just telling the kids it was okay to swap medicines, this incident might well have been avoided.

In this situation as in most 20-20 hindsite says it all. For EMTs/Paramedics/Nurses, etc. Airway, Breathing, Circulation are pounded into us from day one. Here you have a 15-y/o boy whose girlfriend is having trouble breathing due to asthma. He did for her what he would of done for himself because that was all he knew. To hide behind a zero tollerance policy is telling me that fear of lawsuits is taking the place of common sense.
It is time for the silent majority to start standing up and setting things right. That means getting involved with your local community. I think Winston Churchall said "All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing." What have you done to fix the situation?