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Background
In any business where is the guest is invited onto the premises for commercial reasons, e.g., shopping malls, schools, drug stores, recreational facilities, health clubs, pools, golf courses, funeral homes, nursing homes, assisted living centers, and other gathering places, it is our recommendation that a risk assessment be done. Medical emergencies are foreseeable as evidenced by the number of EMS calls to these kinds of businesses. As stated in other articles herein, the questions are whether you, as a business have a duty of care and does the standard of care include having an AED, an O2 unit, or both for public access.

Conclusion:
Public awareness is causing the legal situation to change almost on a daily basis (see case study). Thus, it is our view that a few dollars spent for emergency response equipment, e.g., an AED and O2 unit buys a whole lot of liability protection not to mention the possibility of saving of a life or saving one from irreversible brain damage.

Case Review
Count 57 is taken from a complaint in a case now in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and represents the dismay, and now anger, of a grieving spouse whose husband died from cardiac arrest. Damages are sought because of the failure of a business, i.e., the Defendant, to have an AED and O2 on site and to have personnel possessing the necessary training in their use. Count 57 in this case is not about money; it is a representative case illustrating the devastation caused by the loss of life which, with minimal effort and expense, might have been prevented. (In this case, it was highly likely.)

Count 57
"Defendant… owed a duty to invitees … to exercise due care by, among other things, requiring and ensuring that the [Defendant]…developed and implemented reasonable and appropriate emergency medical services plans; maintained sufficient and necessary emergency medical equipment, to include an AED and oxygen ventilation devices; trained and certified persons in emergency medical services personnel and equipment available promptly and effectively in a medical emergency."

Count 57 emphasizes several factors which may be present in a medical emergency, particularly in a public setting. First, medical emergencies in a public setting are commonplace and foreseeable. Second, it recognizes as an inherent fact that simple to use equipment is commercially available for use in the public setting by either medical personnel or Good Samaritans who may be present, and third, it is not unreasonable to have personnel trained who can provide first aid help prior to arrival of emergency medical services.

In a recent case where a patron drowned in a college pool, one of the counts against the college emphasizes the failure to have emergency equipment including oxygen readily available.