Nurse refuses to do CPR on woman dying, paramedics begging for help

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wirednuts

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2007
7,121
4
0
Taken for the article:

"He told KGET-TV that residents of the home's independent living community are informed of the policy and agree to it when they move in. He said the policy does not apply at the adjacent assisted living and skilled nursing facilities.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/0...r-nurse-refuses-to-perform-cpr/#ixzz2Mbd4NcgU "

I don't see the problem.

the problem is the only reason they have this policy in the first place is because insurance companies charge too much for them not to.

our entire world is run by bankers, insurance and drug companies. its pathetic that people keep bowing to them.
 

MrColin

Platinum Member
May 21, 2003
2,403
3
81
Facts:
1. CPR hardly ever works anyway, especially not on the elderly that have been dying slowly of chronic disease for years. Even if you can get vitals back for a while, the underlying disease is still there. Medicine can barely address it in a healthy patient over long timeframes much less cure it before the patient codes again in five minutes.
2. Just because the 911 operator thinks CPR is warranted doesn't mean jack. They are really just call center drones with very little expertise in anything.
3. The deceased wasn't pronounced dead at the scene, but later at the hospital. Not dead = doesn't need CPR.
4. "Bayless' daughter told a reporter for KGET, the NBC affiliate in Bakersfield, that she was also a nurse and was satisfied with the care her mother received." Thank goodness she's not a lawyer.

Verdict: Inflammatory news piece is inflammatory.
 

PokerGuy

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
13,650
201
101
California has good Samaritan laws that protect the Nurse from litigation.... but not from being fired.

Good Samaritan laws can possibly shield you from successfully being sued, but they can't shield you from getting sued, which means you'd still have to pay for legal defense in the event of a suit -- unless you're indemnified by your employer and they pay for legal defense.... and if you don't follow their policies, you will not be indemnified and they won't cover your legal fees. And of course you'll still get fired.

Person is dying and needs CPR, if you have the ability to provide said lifesaving CPR then you should absolutely do so. The entire "liability" issue shouldnt even enter your mind until after the situation is over.

WTF is wrong with people?

Speak for yourself. How do you know the person didn't have a DNR order? Whats the "right thing" to do if the person doesn't want you to save them? It might be clear cut in your mind, but it's not that black and white IMO.
 

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,458
2
0
And that's why this country is fucked.....that attitude RIGHT THERE.

Nope, it's because you can get sued for doing the "right thing". That woman would likely lose her job if she had performed CPR, you've heard it on the news many time before. There is LIABILITY in touching another human being, and if the woman does it /as a representative of the company/ she puts a HUGE risk on that company because of our litigious society. She loses her job, and how her kids can't eat because she gets blackballed in the industry she went to school for and her dead-beat baby-daddy is nowhere to be found.. . .

sorry but if you take away the risk of being sued, then people are more likely to help a fellow person out! Nowadays if you try and help a kid who has fallen off of his bike, you risk being labled a sex offender. .

. . society has created this.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/04/california-woman-dies-after-nurse-refuses-to-perform-cpr/

The nurse sounds so un-empathetic, in-human.. those are the words that come to my mind.

The paramedic was offering to tell them how to do CPR over the phone and was begging the nurse to give the phone to someone who could do the CPR.

These are nurses?

Fuck their policy..someone died.

She had signed a DNR.

The operator was just trying to do her job, but this is overblown by a huge degree.

The patient was elderly and in poor health and had decided not to be resuscitated.

Not only were they following her wishes, they could be sued if they did not.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
It's called having a family. Now you're potentially liable for helping someone, but they were "bruised" and now have to go through years of court battles and lose thousands of dollars to the detriment of your family life. Blame society, but as i just said in my previous post. . . . there is SUBSTANTIAL risk in helping people today.

Fuck that. My family will understand a bit of burden from me helping someone a hellofa lot better than they will understand me watching someone die when I had the knowledge/power to at least try and help them.

Perhaps your family is different though, if so I pity you and them alike.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
She had signed a DNR.

The operator was just trying to do her job, but this is overblown by a huge degree.

The patient was elderly and in poor health and had decided not to be resuscitated.

Not only were they following her wishes, they could be sued if they did not.

I admit that I was one of those that did the exact same thing and jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I have seen no proof (nor have I looked for any) that she signed a DNR but if that is a fact the nurse absolutely did the right thing. I just wonder why in the world wouldn't she tell the 911 operator instead of letting her continue begging her to start CPR or find someone who will.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
6,940
8
81
Oh fuck that.

Person is dying and needs CPR, if you have the ability to provide said lifesaving CPR then you should absolutely do so. The entire "liability" issue shouldnt even enter your mind until after the situation is over.

WTF is wrong with people?

If it makes you feel any better the success rate of CPR in these kinds of circumstances is so low that it's borderline worthless. When 87 year olds keel over they almost always stay dead no matter how much you smash their ribs or how much electricity you fry them with.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
6,940
8
81
1. CPR hardly ever works anyway, especially not on the elderly that have been dying slowly of chronic disease for years. Even if you can get vitals back for a while, the underlying disease is still there. Medicine can barely address it in a healthy patient over long timeframes much less cure it before the patient codes again in five minutes.

In this particular case I agree that CPR would almost certainly have been worthless, but it's still fucked up that people would be nervous to perform it because of fear of litigation. I am curious to know how many people have actually gotten sued over CPR though. Can anyone cite any actual cases?
 

Lithium381

Lifer
May 12, 2001
12,458
2
0
Fuck that. My family will understand a bit of burden from me helping someone a hellofa lot better than they will understand me watching someone die when I had the knowledge/power to at least try and help them.

Perhaps your family is different though, if so I pity you and them alike.

"a bit of burden"
For a nurse that means having wasted 6 or so years of their lives studying for something they'll likely never be allowed to practice again. Loss of wages. I'm glad that your household could survive without you; some of us aren't that well off. Civil lawsuits and potentially criminal lawsuits depending on your state.

Listen, before I had a family i viewed the world differently. I now have a responsibility to them. I used to be the guy who would pull over and help strangers change tires or get gas, and offer to help carry things to elderly people car in the store. Not anymore. Your society has created such an insurmountable risk to helping others. I still donate time and money to charities but not the hands on stuff i used to. Remember, YOUR society created this.
 

Oldgamer

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2013
3,280
1
0
In this particular case I agree that CPR would almost certainly have been worthless, but it's still fucked up that people would be nervous to perform it because of fear of litigation. I am curious to know how many people have actually gotten sued over CPR though. Can anyone cite any actual cases?

Believe it or not it looks like lawsuits involving CPR by professionals is very rare in the US. I guess we only hear about the sensationalized cases in the media.

I found this, and there are other states that have done the same thing as this state, http://www.abc27.com/story/18600332/should-bystanders-who-give-cpr-be-protected-from-lawsuits

This one says you can give CPR without fear of legal action http://www.life1st.com/files/CPR-Legal_and_Ethical.pdf

So I guess in a nutshell that nurse or aid could have given life saving aid to the elderly woman and would have been protected by the Good Samaritan laws.
 

Oldgamer

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2013
3,280
1
0
If it makes you feel any better the success rate of CPR in these kinds of circumstances is so low that it's borderline worthless. When 87 year olds keel over they almost always stay dead no matter how much you smash their ribs or how much electricity you fry them with.

Wow, really? My grandmother was in her late 80s and they had to give her CPR at the nursing home and she survived.

Do you know for a fact that it is a worthless cause to do CPR on an elderly person?
 

waggy

No Lifer
Dec 14, 2000
68,145
10
81
none if matters.

she did have a living will. so the nurse was right.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
6,940
8
81
Wow, really? My grandmother was in her late 80s and they had to give her CPR at the nursing home and she survived.

Do you know for a fact that it is a worthless cause to do CPR on an elderly person?

I can only repeat what a number of doctors/nurses/paramedics have told me. It's interesting to see how different their attitude toward CPR is.

Re: your grandmother, did she seriously go into cardiac arrest and then make a meaningful recovery (plenty of CPR recipients get a pulse back but then spend the rest of their lives in the ICU or suffer from horrible anoxic brain injuries.)
 

utahraptor

Golden Member
Apr 26, 2004
1,052
199
106
I find it most amusing that the assisted living centre did a 180 turn and said the "nurse" did not follow policy after all within 90 minutes of the family thanking them for following the wishes of the person that died by not trying to resuscitate.
 

Bird222

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2004
3,650
132
106
Nope, it's because you can get sued for doing the "right thing". That woman would likely lose her job if she had performed CPR, you've heard it on the news many time before. There is LIABILITY in touching another human being, and if the woman does it /as a representative of the company/ she puts a HUGE risk on that company because of our litigious society. She loses her job, and how her kids can't eat because she gets blackballed in the industry she went to school for and her dead-beat baby-daddy is nowhere to be found.. . .

sorry but if you take away the risk of being sued, then people are more likely to help a fellow person out! Nowadays if you try and help a kid who has fallen off of his bike, you risk being labled a sex offender. .

. . society has created this.

That's the guy's point that society has gotten to the point you can't try to be a descent human being.
 

Oldgamer

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2013
3,280
1
0
I can only repeat what a number of doctors/nurses/paramedics have told me. It's interesting to see how different their attitude toward CPR is.

Re: your grandmother, did she seriously go into cardiac arrest and then make a meaningful recovery (plenty of CPR recipients get a pulse back but then spend the rest of their lives in the ICU or suffer from horrible anoxic brain injuries.)

She was in ICU for quite a while, then eventually transported back home, where her oldest daughter (a nurse) took care of her. It meant for our family, that her grandchildren still had time with her. My daughter did a video tape with her, telling her life stories before she finally passed. It was worth it to resucitate her, on that the whole family agreed. Was her quality of living less, perhaps, but she overlooked that with the additional time she had with her family. This woman was loved and cherished by her family and we all worked together to make her as comfortable as possible.

Of course we never even considered abandoning her to one of these facilities, and this news story is a clear example of why, among other things.
 

umbrella39

Lifer
Jun 11, 2004
13,819
1,126
126
The family has said she had full knowledge and clear directives. The lady did not die at the facility and died later on at the hospital cause of death stroke. We get called to code blues all the time where guess what, people have just gone unresponsive. They still have pulses and we have all wasted our time running up there. This sounds like CPR would not have been indicated in the first place. We don't do compressions on people with pulses. EMT's said she went into respiratory arrest when they were there as well.

"It was our beloved mother and grandmother's wish to die naturally and without any kind of life prolonging intervention," the family said. "We understand that the 911 tape of this event has caused concern, but our family knows that mom had full knowledge of the limitations of Glenwood Gardens and is at peace." "We regret that this private and most personal time has been escalated by the media," the statement said.

People are taking this way too personally, this wasn't your mother or grandmother.
 

ichy

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2006
6,940
8
81
If you're having a stroke CPR ain't gonna fix what's wrong with you.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,328
126
"a bit of burden"
For a nurse that means having wasted 6 or so years of their lives studying for something they'll likely never be allowed to practice again. Loss of wages. I'm glad that your household could survive without you; some of us aren't that well off. Civil lawsuits and potentially criminal lawsuits depending on your state.

Listen, before I had a family i viewed the world differently. I now have a responsibility to them. I used to be the guy who would pull over and help strangers change tires or get gas, and offer to help carry things to elderly people car in the store. Not anymore. Your society has created such an insurmountable risk to helping others. I still donate time and money to charities but not the hands on stuff i used to. Remember, YOUR society created this.

You can say that "my society" created whatever you wish but I am not the one that is furthering something so fucked up as not trying to save someones life when you have the ability. You say that you used to be a decent human being but that changed when you got a family. How many times were you sued for being a decent human being prior to you getting a family? I have helped plenty of people and have never been sued and will continue to help people.

Sure I have read about people getting sued but I have also read about people getting struck by lightning in broad daylight. I don't keep myself and my family locked in the house 24 hours a day because there is some absurdly small chance they will get struck by lightning just the same as I haven't stopped helping people in need because of some absurdly small chance I might get sued.

Granted this no longer has anything to do with the OP if she really did have a DNR. If she had a DNR it should obviously be honored.
 

Londo_Jowo

Lifer
Jan 31, 2010
17,303
158
106
londojowo.hypermart.net
The family has said she had full knowledge and clear directives. The lady did not die at the facility and died later on at the hospital cause of death stroke. We get called to code blues all the time where guess what, people have just gone unresponsive. They still have pulses and we have all wasted our time running up there. This sounds like CPR would not have been indicated in the first place. We don't do compressions on people with pulses. EMT's said she went into respiratory arrest when they were there as well.

"It was our beloved mother and grandmother's wish to die naturally and without any kind of life prolonging intervention," the family said. "We understand that the 911 tape of this event has caused concern, but our family knows that mom had full knowledge of the limitations of Glenwood Gardens and is at peace." "We regret that this private and most personal time has been escalated by the media," the statement said.

People are taking this way too personally, this wasn't your mother or grandmother.


Of course most are going to pass over your post and continue to blather on and on about whether or not this woman had a DNR or how it would be if it was their grandmother. Based on your post the facility did exactly what they were expected to do by her/her family's wishes.