Search the Community

Earlier this year, I ran a call involving an patient who was well known in certain communities. The call was an obvious DOA (so the individual has long since deceased). The investigation around the death ended months ago and the patient's information and background (his career, etc.) was released to public for news stories. Now that I'm back at the university, I have the opportunity to present a project in one of my classes that revolves around this patient's research (the research the patient did during their career). All of this is legal, of course. The patient, prior to the incident, was a renowned researcher and has accessible files all over the web. My presentation will ONLY involve this patient's research because that's what's relevant to the class. But the main reason I wanted to do a project on this research was because it hit home for me so much, due to the fact that I ran this call. My main question is can I LEGALLY say that I was on scene after this individual's death? The purpose is to give reason for why I wanted to cover this research topic in that class. If the information about his death is known publicly in the news, is it a HIPAA violation for me to say that I was there? I'm not planning on giving any details about what I saw on the scene or after the scene. All of the information that I have outside of the fact that I was present after the death comes from stories that are from website articles (already released to the public). I just want to avoid any legal trouble for mentioning that I was there. Does anybody have an idea about this? I'll also apologize if I posted this to the wrong forum. I am new here!

What do YOU do, when you're called to someone assumed to lay sick behind the closed front door? Just had a call yesterday, that left a citizen with a broken window, a crashed flower pot, a lot of firefighter's footsteps in the house and several opened & searched beds/closets. The adrenaline vapor may be vanished meanwhile. So I just thought the whole way back to the station, that this would be a nice small scenario here... Specifics (just from reality): thursday afternoon, clear sky, summer, but not very sunny, not rainy dispatch gives "sick person laying behind the closed front door" and address (a single brick house with cellar, ground floor, first floor) your team: ALS first responder unit (1 paramedic, 1 EMT) from neighbouring village with ETA 5 minutes (no transport) other, medical: 1 ALS ambulance (2 paramedics) with ETA ~10 minutes on the way other, technical: local volunteer fire department of the same village few minutes away, coming with two engines, 10 staff including local fire chief. other, law enforcement: police tries to find some available officers, next is more than 20-30 minutes away You arrive short after fire department. Two fire trucks are on the street in front of the fenced garden, blocking the access to the driveway. Some firefighter awaits you and tells you instantly to drive your first responder car further away, because there's an ambulance coming. What would you do from now on...?