Thank goodness, instincts of those who come to aid
| • | Vacationers helped save teen's life in shark attack |
| • | Shark victim 'doing well, very positive' |
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Gerald McKenna was sitting with his son at a roadside cafe one evening seven years ago in Tahiti when they heard the squeal of brakes and looked out and saw "a man just lying there kind of moaning and bleeding and people were gathering around and I could see he was in pretty dire straits."
McKenna, a Kaua'i psychiatrist who is president of the Hawai'i Medical Association, ran over to the man, examined him for any obvious fractures, and took off his shirt as a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding.
Yi-Chuan Ching, a retired pediatrician from Hawai'i Kai, was on a flight home from Chicago a few years ago when he noticed "the guy across the aisle looked very green." He knew what he had to do.
"I thought, 'God, I hope this isn't anything too serious because we are not equipped to deal with anything serious up here. I hope I can take care of this without it turning bad'."
Ching got the man lying down in the aisle, examined him and attended to him until the flight landed in Honolulu and an ambulance took the man away to The Queen's Medical Center.
He later got a letter from United Airlines thanking him, but never did learn what had become of his mid-air patient.
Doctors McKenna and Ching were performing a time-honored role as medical Good Samaritans — a tradition most recently observed in Hawai'i when Colorado nurse Nancy Roberts, on vacation on Kaua'i, gave the first aid that probably saved the life of 17-year-old shark bite victim Hokuanu Aki.
Psychiatrist McKenna, who was at his office in Po'ipu and heard the ambulances rushing to Aki's aid this week, says he believes that all human beings have an instinctive desire to help someone in trouble, and that training magnifies the instinct into almost automatic action for medical professionals.
Those instincts and good intentions have been protected by the law for decades so that both lay persons and medical people who step into an emergency situation will not be held liable for their actions.
Where crimes are being committed, Hawai'i law actually requires all persons, including the perpetrator, to try to obtain medical and police aid for the victim if they can do so without endangering themselves or others.
That legislation grew out of infamous cases like that of Kitty Genovese, a New York woman who was stabbed to death in 1964 while 38 of her neighbors looked on from their apartment windows for 35 minutes.
But Hawai'i lawyers familiar with the law say nothing in it absolutely requires doctors or nurses to take medical action.
Hawai'i's basic "Good Samaritan law" dates from 1969. It exempts from civil liability anyone who provides help to a victim in an accident or emergency, as long as the person assists without compensation and doesn't act with "gross negligence or wanton acts or omissions."
Honolulu attorney John Thomas said the law shouldn't deter doctors or nurses or anyone from helping others for fear of liability.
"The basic concept is you want to encourage people to assist, and that's why you except them from liability," Thomas said.
Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.
