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Comment by elil17 | Hacker News Reader

I would argue that, even if you will be falsely accused of a crime, you have a moral obligation to perform CPR because that accusation is so unlikely to go anywhere. I'm sure people make accusations, but from a Google search I can't find any cases where someone was actually arrested or charged for that. It's hard to imagine police or prosecutors not believing that defense, especially given that there would be medical evidence of cardiac arrest.

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While it might be the case that it won't go anywhere, as a defendant / accused you still have to deal with possible reputation damage, legal costs, and time loss.

And the other person might have to deal with being dead - totally different magnitude of problem!

I understand why people hesitate, but if someone is dying in front of you, I think you have to do something if you can, consequences be damned.

Dead people can't sue you.

Neither can alive people apparently because I have not been able to find a case where someone actually sued the person who performed CPR on them.

Edit: It won't let me reply to the link below but that has absolutely nothing to do with gender. That's about injuries sustained while performing CPR and, to quote the article, "You're more likely to get sued if you don't intervene" and "no non-medical person has been successfully sued for providing bystander CPR."

Of the three cases in which defendants were charged with battery assault because they did administer CPR, only one was convicted. And that was because "the patient already had a signed 'Do Not Resuscitate' order and received CPR anyway in their nursing home,"

But most states fully protect bystanders who sincerely try to help, Murphy stressed. Some states even have "Duty to Act" laws that establish fines specifically for bystanders who are medically trained to provide CPR but choose not to help when an emergency unfolds. (Minnesota, Rhode Island and Vermont are three such examples.)

https://www.webmd.com/first-aid/news/20191112/you-wont-get-s...

Indeed. Frighteningly, when I was trained on how to carry a weapon legally, we were taught to shoot to kill. Both because you never know what a live person with a weapon might still be able to do, and, yes, because a dead person cannot sue you.

This was in a state certified carry permit training course in Tennessee.

I'm not defending it, just saying it happened.

That's pretty standard. The usual argument is that if you are in a situation where you need to pull the trigger, you're not in a situation to risk the other person getting back up. Once you start shooting, you don't stop until the threat is gone. In addition, you aim for center of mass as your accuracy takes a nosedive in a life-or-death situation. You're not likely to hit your target trying to aim for anything else. Even if you are super-duper accurate even under duress, there's really no place to hit a person that isn't potentially life threatening. If you want non-lethal self-defence, a gun isn't what you should reach for.

Exactly. I've had all sorts of training and never been told to aim for anything except center of mass. Also told in CCP training that any trained shooter is trained to keep firing until their clip is empty.

I kind of feel the same way as OP, even though, as you say, there is little to no evidence of bystanders suffering legal consequences for intervening to help. Despite that fact, it's been hard wired in my brain (and the brains of other well-socialized men) over years that you must never, ever physically touch a stranger, particularly a woman or child. Full stop. Even if they need help, even if they're attacking you, even if they're not paying attention and might walk into you. Never touch. I learned it as a kid, I learned it in grade school through college, and then it's been drilled over and over in every sexual harassment orientation/training at work. It's just a permanent part of my conditioning by now I don't think I could push through even in an emergency. Especially nowadays, where whenever anything happens, 5 cellphone cameras instantly come out, looking for the next viral video. It's too easy to become the next Reddit star in a video maliciously edited to make you look like a creep.

That makes a lot of sense to me - I'm not saying anyone is wrong to have that instinct.

The existence of this instinct makes educating people important. I think that a lot of this issue could be solved by just reminding people during CPR training that CPR is the rare exception to the otherwise good heuristics of "never touch someone without asking them" and "don't rip off strangers' clothes." Using female CPR dolls could also help. And lastly, people need to know that there is no instance of a lay person being successfully sued for performing CPR, there is no instance of someone being "cancelled" for performing CPR, and that in fact the law explicitly protects those who help.

Absolutely not. The damage to your reputation, the real chance of losing your job, your family, plus the cost and time defending yourself....absolutely not worth it.

According to the CDC, performing CPR has a 10 to 20% chance of saving someone who would otherwise die (https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/cpr.htm)

In contrast, there are no documented cases of someone experiencing actual negative consequences from performing CPR. No lost jobs, no nights in jail, nothing. The closest thing I could find was a case in Japan where a man was questioned by police and let go as soon as he explained that he was using and AED (https://japantoday.com/category/national/man-revives-woman-w...). It was in the unusual case where he performed AED outside, where many passers by were driving and didn't have time to see what was actually happening. Even then, nothing bad happened to him and he saved someones life.

There's a great saying I've learned in life:

"Perception is reality"

Try again.

I genuinely don't understand what you mean. Are you saying that the man in that case suffered negative consequences because others perceived him negatively? I would argue that, in the end, others perceived him positively, as evidenced by the fact that there are news articles lauding him.

Edit: Seems like I've maxed out the conversation tree depth so I'll reply via edit. I absolutely agree, and I think it's therefore important to educate people and let them know that this has never happened and, if it did, the legal system would have their back.

I'm not saying I don't believe the medic above, I'm sure people make accusations. And if you're performing CPR all the time, having a partner with you absolutely makes sense for more reasons than one. However, there is no evidence that any of those claims has ever gone anywhere, or that it's a relevant issue for us non-medical people who are unlikely to perform CPR more than once in our lives.

No. That even if you cannot find a recorded incident, there is the perception they occur (and the medic above said they do occur). That perception is what guides people's beliefs that they may be accused and the fear.

The law in Germany mandates that you have to help (§323c StGB), and gives you a "Haftungsprivileg" for this situation, making you less liable if you do something wrong. It even goes further, if you suffer damages during giving first aid, you are eligible for compensation. Everything within the appropiate limits, of course.

Good law!

> you have a moral obligation to perform CPR

I think that's a dodgy claim, but suppose it's true and you convince everybody that it's true: We know people aren't actually perfect moral decision makers. Even if you manage to convince everybody in the world they have a moral imperative to help, people are still people. At least some of them will put their own skin before their moral imperative to render assistance. Every day, people around the world do things they personally believe to be immoral because they stand to profit from it. Scolding people about their moral obligations hasn't solved crime, and I don't think it ever will.

Anyway, I said I think it's a dodgy claim. Here's why; we can generalize that moral assertion to people having a moral duty to render assistance despite the risk to themselves. But obviously there must be limits to this, the magnitude of the risk is vital to the question. Do you, a casual bystander, have a moral duty to run into a burning building to save somebody? Sometimes people choose to do this and manage to save somebody; obviously they're heroes. But is there a moral obligation for you to run into a burning building, without any firefighting gear or training? Obviously not, the risk is enormous. So the moral duty to render assistance must depend on the magnitude of the risk. But where you put the threshold is entirely subjective and a personal judgement call. Some people have families to support, while other people have nothing to lose. How can you draw one line for both? Some people have a very good reason to believe society distrusts them and will believe the worst in any ambiguous situation. Somebody who's well respected in their community can likely tolerate more risk than somebody who lives on the fringes, maybe has a few criminal convictions in their past, belongs to a demographic popularly discriminated against, etc, etc.

Hypothetical: I'm a single parent with 3 kids to support and a criminal conviction in my past, time served and debt to society payed. I have a lot to lose, three kids that depend on me and will likely get abused in the foster system if I get arrested again. And because this hypothetical me has a criminal record, I know that the system and society are strongly biased against me. Society doesn't really trust me, even though I served my time and payed my debt to society. Do I have a moral duty to help somebody else? Perhaps. But I also have a moral duty to provide for my kids. These factors dissuade me from rendering assistance even if you convince me this moral imperative exists.

Most men accused of bad behaviour never see a courtroom.

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