It's undeniable that an emergency medical technician (EMT) is fundamental to your survival and recovery as an injured patient. An EMT is well-trained and owes you a standard of care when responding to an emergency call and caring for you. What happens when the EMT makes an error that worsens your underlying condition or fails to treat you at all? Please read this article to learn whether you can sue the medical profession for negligence, how to prove your medical malpractice case, and how to recover the compensation you deserve.

Introducing an EMT

An emergency medical technician (EMT) is a medical professional who provides emergency care to persons on their way to or out of the hospital. They can offer first-aid or basic medical attention until the patient gets help at the medical facility.

They are trained, certified, and competent to offer medical emergency care and services within the scope of practice below:

  • Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
  • Helping in childbirth (both complicated and normal)
  • Administering specific medication
  • Use of cervical collar
  • Pulse oximetry
  • Nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal airways
  • Acquiring diagnostic signs like temperature, consciousness level, pupil status, respiratory rate, and blood pressure
  • Offering prehospital emergency attention like spinal motion limitation, bleeding control, spinal immobilization

While performing their work, an EMT can make mistakes in judgment that could result in you sustaining injuries that might impact your life. These mistakes might include:

  • Delaying your transportation when injured — An EMT must hasten to transport you to the nearby medical facility. Delaying could be deemed as gross misconduct and breach of the duty of care procedure.
  • Handling patients roughly including, turning the patient carelessly, reckless driving, and placing the patients in a stretcher without caution. Rough handling could result in injuries on different body areas, including the spine neck.
  • Administering wrong medication due to failing to focus on the patient's signs and symptoms, making assumptions, and wrong attempts during the diagnosis.
  • Failing to support your spine and neck could lead to spinal and neck injuries with life-altering effects.
  • Failing to check your breathing— An EMT is tasked with monitoring and recording the patient's vital signs. Failing to do so is considered negligence since it can result in death by not performing CPR, administering oxygen, or unblocking the airways.
  • Misdiagnosing your health condition — It rises from failing to consider all the patient's signs and symptoms and improper training and can cause wrongful medication.

Emergency medical technicians should adhere to standard procedures outlined by the California Emergency Medical Services Authority. Additionally, the EMSA supervises and licenses EMTs. When the professional violation of the standard procedures causes you an injury, you could take legal action against them for misconduct, malpractice, or negligence. In this case, the EMTs breach protocol and are accountable for their conduct.   

EMT Operating Policies

As previously mentioned, the primary responsibility of an emergency medical technician is providing medical support and care to a patient until they can obtain medical attention. They work to mitigate the symptoms, increase the possibility of recovery, and save lives. To ensure this is achieved, numerous policies guide them, including:

  • The California EMSA, among other appropriate licensing bodies, should license the first responder
  • The professional should analyze the patient, offer the appropriate support, and make all travel arrangements if they reach the accident scene before the Advanced Life Support team.
  • An EMT ought to transport the patients to the hospital and document their basis when deciding where to take the patient.
  • Should the expert face a severe condition, they ought to use their clinical judgment to determine whether it's in the patient's best interest to take the injured person to the nearby healthcare facility or wait for the Advanced Life Support team (ALS). They should file the rationale on their patient's care record.
  • Good Samaritan law provides immunity to any volunteer who responds to emergencies and accidentally injures the victim. The law doesn't apply to persons who act intending to hurt the alleged victim or are negligent.
  • The EMT may transport a hypertensive person with penetrative and life-threatening injuries to a nearby healthcare facility when the estimated time of transport is less than that the ALS team will take to reach
  • Both federal and state laws protect emergency medical technicians who cause injuries to a person, provided they act within the set standard of their practice.

Accountable Parties for the EMT's Mistakes

Assuming an individual suffers a neck injury that limits the flow of blood to their brain and their spouse contacts 911. The ambulance takes fifteen minutes to reach, which is considered a prolonged duration. The ambulance takes the patient to a healthcare facility where surgery kicks off almost two hours after the health condition started. While the person survives, they sustain brain damage. According to an expert medical witness, if the surgical procedure had begun within twenty minutes of contacting 911, the person would have recovered fully.

Who should the person take legal action against?

The ambulance service provider is a private firm, while the county government owns the 911 service. Therefore, the patient can take legal action against the emergency medical technician, the county government, hospital, ambulance service provider, several parties, or even all of these parties.

In this example, the patient could sue all parties because it's unclear where the accountability lies. Maybe the 911 dispatcher gave incorrect directions to the ambulance driver who got lost. Or the healthcare facility was unreasonably slow to prepare for the surgical procedure. Your personal injury attorney should be able to help you sort these issues out during your lawsuit process.

Every case presents different options. If your case involves the county government, you should get around immunity rules applying to government officials. If your claim is against the ambulance service provider, you should prove that the service was accountable for its employees' conduct.

Proving the Medical Malpractice

If you are considering bringing a medical malpractice claim, you might be wondering how you will prove that the EMT made an error. Establishing your case means proving that the medical practitioner did not offer treatment according to relevant legal standards, and their conduct caused you to suffer some harm. The section below discusses what you should prove in your medical malpractice claim (elements).

Proving the Provider-Patient Relationship

You should first prove that there exists a provider-patient relationship. The relationship gives the EMT the duty to offer you skilled care based on the circumstance.

Generally, this is not a complex element to prove.

Medical Standard of Care

When establishing a medical standard of care, the accused EMT will be likened to a similar expert in similar conditions, considering factors such as the EMT's field.

Generally, it'll be vital for an expert witness to affirm how a reasonable and skilled professional EMT would have behaved in similar circumstances. You and the defendant can present expert testimonies on whether the medical provider offered care within the recognized standard of medical malpractice.

From time to time, expert witnesses can use clinical guiding principles published by different medical professional boards and groups to prove the standard of care.

Then an expert witness can apply these medical standards of care to your case facts and demonstrate how the medical expert failed to offer care. It means presenting a thorough testimony as to what your health care provider ought to have acted and then conflicting it with what was done.

Another duty of care is the gross negligence standard. The duty limits a claim to situations where the care offered by the EMT falls significantly below the degree of care that a similarly qualified emergency medical technician would offer in similar conditions. For instance, if the EMT fails to help an asthmatic patient who cannot breathe, that is deemed gross negligence. However, if the medical practitioner treats the individual improperly by performing a tracheotomy, the conduct might not be gross negligence.

Occasionally, an EMT may fail to offer emergency medical care to a patient deliberately intending to cause harm or due to discrimination. Willful actions could include the medical expert failing to respond to emergencies when they should, administering incorrect medication or dosage to an individual, or knowingly leaving an injured person at the accident scene.

Showing the Relationship Between Your Injury and the Medical Malpractice

You should also prove that the medical practitioner's action or inaction caused your disease or injury to worsen or made you suffer additional harm or injury.

You should prove that the injury is not due to your underlying condition or other causes but the medical attention you received. You can use expert testimonies to verify the element of your medical malpractice claim.

Damages (Quantifiable Proof of Harm)

You must also give information about the harm you sustained (damages). Damages can include extra medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and loss of earning capacity.

Proof by a Preponderance of the Evidence

If you suffered injuries due to medical malpractice, you should verify the above elements by a preponderance of the evidence (there is a possibility that they are true). It's a simple legal standard to satisfy than proof beyond any reasonable doubt in criminal cases.

However, medical malpractice plaintiffs have unique hurdles to handle, including special filings and notice of claim requirements. Consequently, it is crucial to analyze your case with a skilled personal injury attorney and determine the way forward.

How Your Personal Injury Attorney Can Establish the Medical Malpractice Against the Defendant EMT

As previously mentioned, expert testimonies are vital for proving the violation and the standard of care. The experts should be similarly skilled as the defendant for their opinions to carry adequate weight.

Your lawyer will examine how the EMT's mistakes led to your injury or the demise of your relative. The investigation might include:

  • Acquiring paperwork that proves the existence of the provider-patient relationship
  • Reviewing your medical records such as tests performed, diagnoses, and medication administered
  • Proving how medical mistakes caused your injury or your loved one's demise
  • Assessing the severity or nature of the injuries sustained
  • Determining the total amount of damages in the claim (it includes reviewing the medical records, evaluating lost income, understanding the challenges you and your family are facing, and determining how the ability to return to work could be affected)

Dos and Don'ts When Proving Your Medical Malpractice Claim Against an EMT

To be awarded compensation, you have a responsibility to prove the medical expert's negligence. It could be hard to establish the distinction between negligence and bad results or establish cases of miscommunication between the involved parties. Here are the dos and don'ts when proving your claim:

  • Capture as many photos as possible
  • If you consider taking legal action against the EMT defendant, don't disclose the information to the medical experts unless advised by your attorney. Also, do not share the details of your civil case with your friends or on social media platforms.
  • Obtain all your treatment's medical records
  • Contact a skilled personal injury attorney immediately you discover that something is not okay.
  • When picking your medical records, be sure not to sign away your entitlement to sue. Don't sign anything without consulting your lawyer.

Damages Awarded in the Medical Malpractice

Generally, there are two forms of damages awarded in medical malpractice claims, namely:

Economic Damages/Economic Damages

Economic damages are damages that are easy to determine. They include lost earning capacity, lost income, medical care expenses made essential by the EMT's mistake, and additional financial losses caused by the negligence.

While lost income is the amount of earnings you have lost, lost earning capacity is the amount you will lose in your future.

Present Value

Since assessing lost earning capacity and future lost earning require extensive calculation that might extend many years into your future, you should factor in present value. Present value involves determining the value of your flow of income as if it was in your bank account currently. In layman's language, the amount of money your boss should have in their bank account to foot your twenty-year worth salary.

If you were not employed when you got injured by the EMT, you could claim the earnings from the former job as the earning capacity. If you haven't worked for several years, the defendant will claim that you don't have the earning capacity and cannot claim lost earning capacity damages. In this case, you should work with your defense lawyer to develop the best plan for claiming the damages.

If you got injured before taking your new job with better pay, you could use the new pay rate as the earning capacity, provided you can establish that you are hired for that position.

If you're self-employed, your lawyer will examine your tax returns and business records to determine whether your records support the lost earning claim.

Future Medical Expenses and Special Damages

Sometimes medical malpractice can involve a catastrophic injury that might require lifetime medical attention and vast sums of money. Your lawyer will engage an economist to present the damage to the jury appropriately,

General Damages/Non-economic Damages

It is hard to determine the actual calculation of general damages because they are subjective. They include:

  • Pain and suffering — If you suffer injuries following an EMT's negligence, the discomfort, physical pain, and emotional consequences of the injury are part of your non-economic damages. When determining the dollar value of your pain and suffering damages, you will use a multiplier method. Your pain and suffering damages are worth a multiple of your economic damages.
  • Loss of consortium — These are intangible services and benefits that you offered to your spouse and children.

You can also be awarded punitive damages if your case if you can establish that the defendant EMT action was:

  • executed either deliberately or
  • with a willful and conscious disregard of the safety and rights of others (recklessly or gross negligence).

Is There a Cap on the Total Amount of Damages You Can Recover?

Under California Civil Code 3333.2, there is a limit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in general damages awarded in your medical malpractice suit.

Statute of Limitations for Your Medical Malpractice Claim

A statute of limitations is the time limit on your entitlement to bring a lawsuit. The concept behind the law is that prospective plaintiffs should not be permitted to wait an unreasonable amount of time before filing their claim.

You should file your medical malpractice claim against the EMT within three (3) years after your injury's date or a year after you learn or through the use of reasonable diligence ought to have known of your injury.

In other words, after you discover that the negligent EMT caused your injuries, a year-clock begins ticking on the entitlement to bring a suit to court. However, if three (3) years have elapsed since the malpractice took place, you have lost the right to file your lawsuit.

Please note that the medical malpractice SOL can be tolled when the EMT's concealing or fraudulent conduct essentially concealed the medical error.

Statute of Limitations for Minor Children

Plaintiffs should file medical malpractice claims for minor children within three (3) years from the date of the EMT malpractice. Nonetheless, parents should bring the lawsuits for their children below six years within three years from the date of the malpractice or before the minor turns eight, whichever time frame offers a larger filing timeframe.

California has an exemption for juveniles in fraud cases. The court will pause the SOL for the duration during which the child's parent/guardian, defendant's insurance provider, or the emergency medical technician provided fraud linked to the failure to file the claim on the juvenile's behalf.

Find a San Diego Personal Injury Attorney

Emergency medical technicians play a significant role in how persons will survive and recover from the injuries or trauma they've suffered or affect whether the patient will succumb to the ordeal or live. As a result, the EMT should be well-trained, respond promptly, know how to respond and act, and have the required resources. Nevertheless, when you suffer injuries due to the first responder's negligence, you have a right to take legal action for the medical malpractice and receive compensation.

The competent legal team at San Diego Personal Injury Law Firm has a track record of success and has successfully represented thousands of plaintiffs. We can work aggressively to examine your case facts, file your medical malpractice claim to a successful settlement or verdict and ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. To book your initial consultation, contact us today at 619-478-4059.