LEO Refuses to do CPR on Child Drowning Victim... Right or Wrong?

[Sasha]

If the officer was dispatched to an emergency, had the training to help, and did not, then shame on him. The reason police are often dispatched to "medical calls" in the first place is that they are usually closer, and usually trained in potentially life-saving interventions like CPR.

I'd like to think that most police officers I know would do everything in their power and more to save the life of a child - the same, by the way, goes for EMS and Fire as well. We may tell ourselves that all lives have meaning, but when the call goes out for an injured child, you can see the difference in reaction. It's outrageous that anyone would stand there and tell parents, "I'm not going to help your child at all."

The parents have a responsiblity for keeping their children safe, yes. But coming upon the scene where the accident has already happened, that is no time to make value judgments about how good a parent someone is. You treat the patient in front of you.

An first responder, be it police, fire, ems, has the duty to go home to their family, safe and sound without brining along an icky that can kill them or spread to their families. Reaper is right, the kid could have had an icky. I would NOT do CPR with out a face mask. Plain and simple. I am not going to make myself sick for a child or adult who is already dying/dead.

 

[Sasha]

All police in this country are supposed to carry a rescue mask, some are also required to carry an AED

This is rediculous and the officer should be charged with neglegence.

You got a source for that? Because in the article it says

Under the Texas City Police Department’s policy, “plastic mouthpieces or other authorized barrier resuscitation devices shall be used whenever an officer performs CPR or month-to-mouth resuscitation,” Burby said. However, the department does not issue that equipment to its officers and allows an officer to decide whether to perform CPR.

When something is required, they are provided by the department. It also states an officer is allowed to decide. To be charged with negligence there has to be a duty to act that the officer breeched. If he is not required to, by law, then he was not negligent.

 

[amberdt03]

Do you wear gloves at work? Do you do mouth to mouth on your Pt's?

I am guessing, NO. The reason is that you do not want to take the risk of infections, that can be taken home to love ones.

You could pass TB on to your family. You could contract Hep C and die from it. Then your family is left alone. All for a stranger? Not me.

Yes, I would have did compressions, but the family would be doing rescue breaths!

heck yeah i wear gloves at work.....i think the fault comes down on who was suppose to be watching the kids, whether it was the parent or the neighbor.

 

[reaper]

Could catch. I worded that wrong!

 

[amberdt03]

Could catch. I worded that wrong!

i figured....still had to give you a hard time though

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

All police in this country are supposed to carry a rescue mask, some are also required to carry an AED

"Supposed to"? "Required to"? Care to cite some sources for this information?

This is ridiculous and the officer should be charged with negligence.

Do you know what the word "negligence” means? In order for someone to medically be charged with negligence you have to prove a duty to act and a violation or departure from what was medically reasonable for that person to do (i.e. would every other person with the same level of training and with the same job description have done the same thing)?

He was following policies and his training in what he did, although some might disagree with his decision to follow that policy. The policy is not just some thing written on paper haphazardly. EVERYONE is taught (regardless of level of training; from Mommy getting Lay CPR Cert from ARC to the Trauma Room Docs) that you have no responsibility to provide medical care in a situation where you are not properly equipped to do so. No Mask? There is a danger to your health that is possible. Safety comes first and you are within your legal rights to say, “NO”.

Please explain how he was legally negligent.

If the officer was dispatched to an emergency, had the training to help, had the responsibility legally to help, was equipped to help, and did not, then shame on him.

There… fixed it for ya.

There are a LOT of "what-ifs". But since this is an actual patient and not a hypothetical one I think the only "what-if" that I would be concerned about is "what if I had done more?" . The difference btw to me between an adult and a child is that the adult has had time to live his life and bear children, make a mark in the world, etc...a child has not had that yet, and since that's pretty much what life's all about I personally feel that a child's life is more precious. Sometimes that means going above and beyond policies, up to and including placing myself in harms way. That's MY policy. I don't expect or require anyone else to follow it. At the end of the day I'm the one who has to live with the consequences. In my world it's always better to try and fail than never try at all, especially if that reason really was because of a little piece of plastic that wasn't between me and a child’s mouth.

I sure am glad that our training qualifies us to pass judgment on others and decide who is deserving of going above and beyond the call of duty.

When you put on the uniform you accept a responsibility to help everyone you are called upon to… equally. You don’t personally know these people, so how can you say who deserves for you to provide better care or to violate protocols because of who you perceive them to be?

The 30 y/o you refuse to do mouth to mouth on because of cooties could have been the guy that cures cancer in 20 years. The child you do mouth to mouth on could grow up to be the next Stalin (will not go German because of Godwin’s Law). We should not be thinking about those possible future realities while performing our duties, any more than we should be thinking about our perceived reality presented to us. Child, drunk transient, soccer mom, junkie, theoretical physicist, EMT, Trauma Surgeon…. When we roll up to help those classifications are meaningless, they are human beings that deserve the same level of care and diligence across the board…

We talk about the LEOs moral and ethical resposibilities to help... what about our moral and ethical to not pass judgement and provide a consistant standard of care?

 

[Summit]

If you train your officer to do CPR and don't provide the simplest and cheapest of supplies to allow him to actually do CPR safely... then you are a moron.

 

[reaper]

:beerchug:BRAVO:beerchug::beerchug:

 

[ki4mus]

Umm, NO they are not required to! Some have policies for it, but not required by law. AED? That is a joke. Most PD's do not carry AED's.

ours carry full jump kits and a Zoll 1600...

If the LEO is being dispatched to a medical problem then they should be trained and equiped to handle it at lest till EMS arrive....and quite frankly any public safty officer that isn't certified in CPR and ready to preform first aid is pointless...

 

[kittaypie]

ok... this child was down for how long before someone noticed and called 911?

and the family was doing CPR while the LEO coached them:
"The officer reported that when he noticed the procedure was not being done properly and that Bradford was blowing air into the boy’s stomach, he told the mother and another woman how to properly administer CPR."

so it wasn't like he was just standing there and twiddling his thumbs.

morally, he should've stepped in. legally, he didn't have to. and who's to say his CPR would've been more effective than the family's? yes, he may be certified but how many times has he done CPR on an actual infant? i'm betting he wouldn't have been much help.

plus, the paramedics were there 4 minutes after him. the child was pronounced dead an hour later at the hospital. if they pronounced him that quickly, chances are he was way beyond saving. and 4 minutes (especially since CPR was being performed during that 4 minutes) would have had little effect on the outcome.

the mother needs to understand that it was nobody's FAULT (at least EMS-wise) the kid died. that's great it makes her feel better about coping with the death but she shouldn't be publicly blaming people for it.

i'm all for improving CPR administration and training for LEOs. that would be very useful in many cases. how many times have you shown up on a full arrest and there's already a LEO on scene? it would be awesome if he/she was in there doing CPR and setting up an AED.

also, how come pool safety isn't an issue being talked about? this whole thing wouldn't have even happened if the child hadn't drowned in the first place. there needs to be more emphasis on fencing around pools and educating parents about preventing drowning.

for this particular incident, i'm not blaming the LEO. let's say a LEO witnesses an arrest and doesn't do anything about it for about 10 minutes until paramedics got there... yeah i'd be pissed if i were the family. his actions could possibly have saved the patient. but not in this drowning case. it's just a tragedy.

 

[Mountain Res-Q]

So... since there seems to be a prevalence in America of people trying to find blame for “**it happens” tragedies and since most people like to assign blame to those who fail to live up to their expectations (expectations that might not be realistic) while pardoning those who had the primary responsibility to “protect and serve” (like Mommy)… How about we assign some numbers to this… What numbers do you insert here?

In this situation, the blame rests…

__% with the Officer for following policy and making his own moral/ethical choice
__% with the CPR Policy of “No Mask… NO CPR”
__% with the Police Dept. for failing to provide the Officer with Pocket Masks
__% with the Mother who had accepted the responsibilities of parenthood
__% with the Teenage Babysitter who failed to watch over the child
__% with the Child for not being a smarter 2 year old
__% with Obama for failing to hold a “Milk Bottle Summit” and settle the issue

 

[Sasha]

Sounds like the 19 year old had too much on her hands. Victim, siblings of the victim and some neighborhood children.. sounds like a lot of kids for a young woman who had things to get done.

 

[reaper]

So... since there seems to be a prevalence in America of people trying to find blame for “**it happens” events and since most people like to assign blame to those who fail to live up to their expectations; expectations that might not be realistic) while pardoning those who had the primary responsibility to “protect and serve”… How about we assign some numbers to this… What numbers do you insert here?

In this situation, the blame rests…

_1_% with the Officer for following policy and making his own moral/ethical choice
_0_% with the CPR Policy of “No Mask… NO CPR”
_10_% with the Police Dept. for failing to provide the Officer with Pocket Masks
_30_% with the Mother who had accepted the responsibilities of parenthood
_40_% with the Teenage Babysitter who failed to watch over the child
_1_% with the Child for not being a smarter 2 year old
_18_% with President Obama for failing to hold a “Milk Bottle Summit” and settle the issue

That sounds about right!

 

[Sasha]

there needs to be more emphasis on fencing around pools and educating parents about preventing drowning.

Like teaching children how to swim. One adult and two teenage girls drown recently around here(http://www.wesh.com/news/21319838/detail.html)... in this day and age with pools everywhere it is down right idiotic not to teach a child how to swim.

 

[Lifeguards For Life]

Like teaching children how to swim. One adult and two teenage girls drown recently around here(http://www.wesh.com/news/21319838/detail.html)... in this day and age with pools everywhere it is down right idiotic not to teach a child how to swim.

an alarming amount of adults have no idea how to swim. or float for that matter

 

[akflightmedic]

We all float....eventually.

 

[Lifeguards For Life]

We all float....eventually.

haha. thats true. anyone gets that bloated their going to float

 

[Cory]

edited

I didn't edit it because of that, I edited it immediately after posting <_<

...if I am not mistaken, this forum has community leaders to pass judgement on people, not you

 

[Aidey]

Where I am the LEOs are not allowed to provide medical care, period. I'm not sure if they carry barrier devices or not, but I know that they can't give a person a bandaid, or put some gauze on a wound. They technically do have gloves, because they have them for touching icky things and searching people, however the dept policy is no medical treatment.

What happens instead is that the PD call the FD who go out and give the guy a once over and determine if PD can haul them off to jail or if the guy needs stitches or advanced cleaning or whatever.

My personal policy is that if I wouldn't kiss you under normal circumstances, I wouldn't give you mouth to mouth without a barrier device.

 

[Sasha]

an alarming amount of adults have no idea how to swim. or float for that matter

I am absolutely amazed everytime I meet a floridian who can't swim. With lakes, ponds, pools, fountains, oceans, water parks, swamps, and the floods we get you would think that everyone would learn how to swim.