Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.
John Semmens Just reading the excerpt can easily create a knee jerk reaction. We don't know exactly what happen. It could very well be possible that the rescuer used no reasonable caution to pull the victim out and actually compounded the injury and could have made a recoverable injury permanent. I'm betting this is what happened.
What's reasonable depends on circumstances. If the car were on fire, it would be reasonable to remove the passenger from the car immediately even at the risk of worsening injuries. I was taught that in the case of suspected spinal cord injuries, let the professional emergency responders move an accident victim unless there is an immediate threat to life. I wonder how bright a typical cosmetitian is. Also just imagine the opportunity for trial lawyers the next time a 7+ earthquake strikes in California.
Yes and several years ago I did this I pulled kids out of a car that had a fire under it..the driver fell asleep at the wheel and the other car was down a ditch. Another driver came by and put the fire out and left. I tried to get the mother out but she was so large and had a compound fracture of her leg so I held the door as shut as I could to keep her from falling out of the car. It was a heart stopper for sure.