this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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False. In the US, while you are typically under no legal obligation to help, if you do decide to help you are legaly protected by good samaratan laws. Those laws basically boil down to as long as you are making your best effort to help someone and you are acting within the bounds of your training then you can't be held responsible for any damage you may cause. The key point is that you're acting within the bounds of your training. If you see someone choking and stab a pen into their neck like you saw on TV one time then you're still 100% liable for that. However in situations such as moving someone with a spinal injury out of the road you are still covered; yes you made the wrong choice and likely paralized the person, but you were trying to help someone in danger and doing it in the only way you knew how.
That's not to say that someone can't try to sue you. That does happen, but in those situations they are just trying to scare you into settling out of court because odds are the case would be thrown out before it actually got to court anyways.