violation or not

[AnnaBananna]

Im not sure whether my 2 cents applies. But, at the hospital where I work, here in the state of California, when a patient of ours passes away...we do not give information who is not in direct relation to the expired pt. It is still medical information. If we were to tell a person what happened, how they died, and they were not next of kin...we would be in HIPAA violation. Medical information is medical information.

We also hear of many of these celebrities death photos being released, and people are sued for passing these pictures around. Im not sure the violation, but Im sure its illegal..

Also there was a case sometime back a CHP officer took pictures of an 18 year old girl named Nikki Catsouras who was killed in an auto wreck and he said he sent them to his kids to show them the dangers of speeding. Well those pictures were leaked to internet and in an MAJOR act of cruelty...someone emailed the father of the girls with all accident photos attached of her partially decapitated..with the title "Daddy I'm Alive"....I know the family fought to get them removed but lost out on the battle the photos are still circulating. As far as I know no charges were ever pressed against the CHP officer responsible for releasing Nikkis photos outside of the department.

I could not imagine seeing my family member let alone my child presented like that. It has to be against the law

[AnnaBananna]

1. This person is dead and therefore not a patient; not sure if it would have anything to do with hippa.

2. Once the picture is on the internet, if there is no accompanying copyright tags, rights to the picture are lost.

Not true, every picture on the internet has a signature that stay with its originator, just because something is deleted from a hard drive..it will ALWAYS exsist..and so will its "digital imprint"

[fireflymedic]

Here's how you easily fix problems like this

1. screen potential employees a little better - I wonder where some of these services find the garbage working for them. EMT's that don't care when a pregnant woman's seizing in front of them, others high on methadone - wreck a buggy and kill the patient, kill their kid, stab themselves and turn around saying someone attacked them. I think I'm seeing a disturbing trend here.

2. Just Don't Do It !

[Richard B the EMT]

Also there was a case sometime back a CHP officer took pictures of an 18 year old girl named (Name deleted) who was killed in an auto wreck and he said he sent them to his kids to show them the dangers of speeding. Well those pictures were leaked to internet and in an MAJOR act of cruelty...someone emailed the father of the girls with all accident photos attached of her partially decapitated..with the title "Daddy I'm Alive"....I know the family fought to get them removed but lost out on the battle the photos are still circulating. As far as I know no charges were ever pressed against the CHP officer responsible for releasing (Name deleted) photos outside of the department.

This may be the case I mentioned, the details sound like it.

[HERBIE1]

This may be the case I mentioned, the details sound like it.

I cannot imagine the grief that family has endured. Personally, I could excuse the original posting of the picture far easier than the person who continues to resubmit them. If I am that dad, I would do everything in my power to track down the sick SOB that thinks that's funny and reposts that picture. I would also have no need for law enforcement to stop that person from ever doing it again.

[mffrhorne]

Interesting enough doc......the photo remains!

Reading some of the replies on this thread makes me wonder when you have time to "snap a picture" in a critical situation? I'm not calling anyone out on this because I understand that there may be or just is a need to "prove" to the ER staff how bad things were on a scene. I just don't understand when the time is taken in those cases to stop pt care to take that photo. Even with cell phones, you have to maneuver through your menu to get to the camera. Like I said I understand the argument about using the photo for documentation, but this leads me to ask those who are thrill seeking to prove their worth online......Is it worth it to your pt that you stop working on them, so your ego can be stroked?

Leaving the internet out of this for just a minute. If I'm on a wreck job, and the patient care is under control, taking mechanism photographs with the units Polaroid may be the best contribution I can make at that time. We have the real blessing of having a lot of skilled help in a really short time on most of our incidents. Nice thing about Polaroids is that they are at least a little harder to convey electronically. Since you would have to work at it to do it most of the malintentioned types won't bother. The Polaroids end up in the patients medical file were they belong.

The doctors at our trauma center always seem grateful to have them. Once I open a ten pack I use it up so I take pictures of the riding position for that patient, passenger compartment intrusion, and exterior damage shots of both vehicles or whatever else the patients vehicle struck. One of my pictures of a shattered full sized utility pole saved a patients life according to the trauma docs. They told me that the pictures caused them to look a little further than they otherwise might have and found an inter cranial bleed. I don't think they would say that just to glad hand me so I think it can be worth doing no matter what camera you have to use.

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Tom Horne