Good Samaritan Laws in Washington

skywag · Mar 5, 2012

What are the WA good samaritan laws?

I gave a dead guy compressions for 15 minutes last night, until 911 arrived.

Can I be liable for anything?

KG
JK Cloward rifle collector

accessbob · Mar 5, 2012

Perhaps this will help:

<broken link removed>

EMP9596 · Mar 5, 2012

April 28, 2005 – Gov. Christine Gregoire today signed thirty-five bills into law including the "Good Samaritan Law" which makes it a misdemeanor offense to fail to assist a person who has suffered substantial bodily harm, provided that the person could reasonably summon assistance without danger to himself or herself.

RCW 4.24.300: Immunity from liability for certain types of medical care.

<broken link removed>

CharonPDX · Mar 5, 2012

Took a first aid/CPR course a couple weeks ago - the instructor included the text of both Oregon and Washington's good samaritan laws. Others have linked; but in short: Perform to the best of your ability, as long as it is safe for you to do so, and you're good.

His wording was "The person is already dead, you can't make them worse than dead, so you can't be causing harm by doing CPR. If the person recovers, they may have broken ribs. But before they were dead - now they only have broken ribs. That's better than dead."