Can I Be Sued For Providing First Aid?

If you witness an accident or attend an accident and want to provide first aid, do you know if you can be sued for providing this First Aid?

Depending on which country and which state you live there a multiple laws generally designed to protect anyone who voluntarily offers, or renders, assistance or first aid during a medical emergency. Many states have what is called a Good Samaritan Law, or Good Samaritan Act, which basically protects a person, who, through a voluntary basis, is providing first aid. Any person, irrespective of their normal professional standards, such as a medical physician or paramedic, is generally protected from liability, when they render first aid in good faith at the scene of an emergency.

In general, a person may only be sued for rendering first aid if it is proven that they maliciously or with wanton intent to harm, provided a level of care below the standard of a person with similar knowledge and experience in the same circumstance. This does not mean that a medical doctor should be assessed based on his or her knowledge as a doctor in a hospital, but rather as a doctor, who has no medical equipment, and is outside his or her normal location of practice.