Car accidents, obligations?
 

I drove by a car accident on my way home from school this morning. It was pretty bad, one car in the middle of an intersection all smashed up. I'm guessing someone ran a red and then took off after they hit someone. The police/ambulance hadn't arrived yet but some people were stoping to help (most had to though as it blocked a lot of lanes). I didn't see anyone in the smashed up car. I only got a glimpse though since as I went by in the right hand lane the left and turning lane cars blocked my view as I approached.

Should I have pulled over and walked back to see if I could help? You arn't supposed to move someone who has been in an accident though, right? What is my obligation? I feel bad even though I'm not sure there was anything I could do. Remember I didn't see the accident, so there was no reason to stay for a police report. Is there anything, besides calling 911, I could/should have done?

Morally...or legally?

I'd say in this case where there were already a lot of people, there wasn't any moral or legal obligation to stay. You didn't witness the crash and they didn't seem to need anymore help.

The Good Samaritan Law protects you from civil liability when you are rendering aid "that a reasonable person with the same training under similar circumstances would have done"

In Quebec, if you have First Aid training, you must stop and provide aid. It is the law.

And the Hippocratic Oath that physicians take requires them to also provide aid to the injured. They can get their liscence pulled if it is reported that they didn't help, but had the means and opportunity.

What should you have done? Something, if there was noone else around. If aid was already being provided, then I think you are okay!

If there are already people on the scene to help, and you don't have any medical expertise to add, then you're better off leaving and not adding to the confusion... It's one more car blocking the way for emergency services people to have to navigate around.

Ya done good kid.

If there are people there, it's a reasonably safe assumption that one of them had a cell phone and emergency services has been summoned. If you have no special skills you can add to help the situation, and you did choose to stop, you're just one more person for EMS to deal with when they arrive.

On the other hand, if no one was stopped, you might be a bit of a bugger for not stopping to at least make the 911 call. Or, perhaps you're an ER doctor on his day off. It might behoove you to stop then.

From what you described though, you've just showed you're a decent human being for wanting to stop, and wondering if you did the right thing.

Yeah, if there are already enough responders, and unless you have something unique to provide, it's best not to get underfoot.

If the crowd hasn't built yet I make it a practice to stop and offer to retrieve someone, make a call, etc. That started going out of style ten years ago when cell phones reached saturation. It's still worth asking but I haven't had to do more than make the obligatory redundant 911 call in years.

Thanks, cleared things up.

"The Good Samaritan Law protects you from civil liability when you are rendering aid "that a reasonable person with the same training under similar circumstances would have done""

That's good to know.

From personal experience, I can tell you that stopping to make sure someone has a phone and has called the police/ambulance, etc., is a good idea. I have stopped for many accidents, and I'd say in about one in five I was the first to pull out a phone a make a call, to the best of my knowledge. Many people assume this happens automatically, but it doesn't. If a family member of mine was in the car, I'd be very grateful to the one person who MADE SURE help was on the way. Very sad stories are made from making assumptions that our actions are meaningless.