Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

  Quick Summary: A nurse who volunteered for the first aid tent was sued for assisting a man in anaphylactic shock from eating the seafood.

   A nurse volunteered her time to staff the first aid tent at an outdoor music festival where food was being sold and served to the public by the festival promoters. A festival patron sampled the seafood gumbo. The gumbo happened to contain shellfish to which the man had an idiopathic allergy. He went into anaphylactic shock and soon died.

   There were just the nurse and a physician at the first aid tent. Both were unpaid volunteers. When it was reported a man was in distress, the physician quickly went to his aid. The physician recognized he was in anaphylactic shock, told someone to call the emergency paramedics, and gave the man the only dosage of epinephrine she had in her emergency bag.

   As soon as someone else came to staff the first aid so she could leave, the nurse also went to the man’s assistance. She stayed with him while waiting for the paramedics. He went into respiratory distress. The physician and the nurse did CPR, but could not revive the man, and he died on the way to the hospital.

   The Supreme Court of Rhode Island used the Good Samaritan law to throw out the wrongful death lawsuit the family filed against the physician and the nurse. They were volunteers rendering gratuitous services in an emergency situation, and there was no proof they were guilty of "gross, willful or wanton negligence."