Deseret News | Utah County judge throws out Payson police lawsuit

Reader comments
Utah County judge throws out Payson police lawsuit

Other..... | 7:33 p.m. Jan. 6, 2009

than the camera in a Police car, I think it is a good idea for Law Enforcement and EMS to have a recording mic on themselves when they are dealing with the public to record everything that's being said during an incident or situation....

Too bad | 9:47 a.m. Jan. 7, 2009

I have to side with Anderson here. The officer should have left him alone.

Unreasonable seizure | 11:34 a.m. Jan. 7, 2009

Since when do police officers or EMT's have constitutional authority to force anyone to get medical treatment? They can involuntarily commit mentally ill patients, but apparently didn't. (Of course I wasn't in the court room, and the judge may have decided that the transport was voluntary, which is a different issue.)

Comments continue below

EMT | 3:16 p.m. Jan. 7, 2009

A patient cannot be compelled to be transported to the hospital. If EMS personnel can prove that the patient was not alert and "oriented", EMS personnel can make the determination to transport the patient on the patient's behalf. If the patient is alert and oriented, but EMS personnel feel that the patient should be transported and the patient does not object, EMS personnel are working within their scope of practice. From the article, it appears that the patient was somewhat alert and oriented. The question is whether or not the patient actually refused to be transported or not.

Add your comment

Comments are monitored. Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted.

Words Remaining

E-mail address: For internal use only. We may want to contact you to publish your comment (not your e-mail address) in the newspaper or for a separate story idea.