Selects: Are good samaritan laws effective?

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. And this is Stuff you should Know. Just a trio of helpful types who like to go around the world and escort people through crosswalks and get sued for it. Escorting someone to a busy intersection against the light right, and then you get to the other side and hold out your hand, say lay some bread on me, sucker.

All these are bad ideas, they really are, they really are. But I mean we're full of those, aren't we, Chuck, Yeah, I mean just brimming with them. That's our log line to ten plus years of bad ideas, all right, or oh god, you've been listening to us this whole time? Are you crazy? Oh boy, So you're feeling pretty good about this one, because I gotta tell you I am. Yeah. I mean, if folks listen to our I think, dare I say it was a good episode on the very

sad case of Kitty Genovese in New York. That was a good episode. You can go back and listen to that. And that's a pretty good setup because in that, just to recap very quickly, in the mid sixties, a young woman was was raped and killed in a very busy area of New York City, and uh, it was very famous because many many people um supposedly heard the attack, watched the attack, perhaps didn't do anything, made the news, and created something that they study still today. And uh

in psychology classes called the bystander effect. Yeah, this this idea of responsibility diffusion where if you have a bunch of people standing around no one, everybody just assumed somebody else will help, and they don't help. Yeah, Joshua Clark or some help. Sure, leave it up to him. And I'm sitting there like, well, obviously Chuck's gonna help. He's a better person than me, and then we're both just

staying there and do nothing. Yeah, in the meantime, Jerry's just laying there with like a jolly rancher in her throat, right, But everybody knows she can't talk anyway, so she can't call for help. It's very hard to tell sometimes that Jerry's in need of assistance, or if she's just being Jerry, right, or if she even exists. However, article says that, um, the bystander effect in this case in particular, led to

the first good Samaritan laws in our country. Yeah, that is not true, because two years before that, right here in Georgia, our first laws went into effect. Yeah. The one I found that was the earliest was in nineteen fifty nine, five years before Kitty Geneviz was murdered, and that was in California, and that protected doctors who were administering aid in emergency situations. Hippie liberal elitist out there

right the left coast. But but it's a weird thing to tie together the bystander effect and good Samaritan laws because they don't actually go together. They're not that you like you want them to fit together, but when you lay them side by side, you're like, oh, these are these are two different types of sea monkeys. I thought they were husband and wife, but they're not. Oh I see the correlation. I want to. My brain just won't

quite make the the connection. Like if someone had race down to help Kitty Genevise and render her aid and not been a bystander, then they could You know that

falls into the good Samaritan laws. It does, but really it falls more under like the duty to act laws, like you'll get in trouble if you if you are just a bystander if you don't do something, whereas a good Samaritan law basically says, if you do do something and you help Kitty Genevise or somebody who's in trouble and you make their situation worse, you can't be sued for for rendering eight because you were acting in good faith. So it's kind of there, but it's not quite. It

doesn't click. I got you, you know what I'm saying. I hear you, all right, Okay, I just really wanted to get that off of my chest. Well, uh so, yeah, you just kind of said it like those those laws are in place now as protections generally, um, for American

that they happened all over the world. We'll talk about a few of the laws here and there, but uh, all fifty states and Washington, d C. The the District of Columbia have some sort of laws on the books, uh that that you can basically be protected potentially and not held responsible for your actions even if they cause harm. But because it's state law if you're not American, I'm not sure how it works in all countries, but they the laws and from states to state on the same

thing can vary wildly. Yeah, and certainly in this case, it's what they call a patchwork of state laws in need of a federal law for sure. Yeah, for sure. So because there's so many different laws in so many different states. Um, you know, if the actions that you you perform in one state might get you you know, you might get your mug on the front page of the paper being celebrated, and in another state your mugs on the front page of the paper because you just

got sued, you know. So we'll we'll dive into that a little more. But first let's talk about where the name for the laws come from. Chalk. Yeah, I remember this story from my church going days as a kid. That really stood out to me back then, because uh, well it's in Luke and the story is is that a Jewish man was assaulted and robbed on the road and left for dead basically, and some people passed by without rendering aid. A Jewish priest and a levite, which

is an assistant priest basically assistant to the priest. Do you have the impression that the priest and the levite were together, or that the priests passed and then at some point later on the levite passed. You know what this is going back a lot of years, dude. But if my memory is telling me that they were two separate things, Okay, I knew that question would pay you all. But I might be wrong, But my my old I still have some old church memories rattling around in this

dusty noggin. He just saw like smoke come out of my ears. I thought that was a flower. Oh sure, well, I'm gluten free though, Oh are you? No, Emily is so, But by default I sometimes I am right, sure, No, I know what you mean. You know that goes. But finally, as the story goes, a Samaritan. Um, that is, a person from Samaria who were bitter enemies of the Jews, came by, and what did he do? He said, Hey, buddy, you look like you're having a pretty rotten day. Let

me help you out, that's right. And he did. He not only said here, let me let me pick you up and get you out of this dusty road. Um, I'm gonna take you to an inn. And not only am I gonna do that, I'm gonna pay for your room at the end. And then I'm gonna say it, bid you a good day and good health. Audios enemy. And he did. Imagine this chuck this good Samaritan story. It's entirely possible that the actually took place, That this is a real story that happened, right, it's not just

a parable. Imagine if you were that guy, that Samaritan who did this thing, this act of goodwill, and two thousand years later, people around the world are still talking about it. How great would that happy? You know? Yeah, like twenty minutes after our show ends, no one's going to talk about it, right, you know, just like all of this the talk shows, we've been on the kiss of death that we have, Uh, but yeah, for sure. I mean every even if you are like the most

atheistic agnostic human on earth. You've heard of the story of the Good Samaritan. It's just one of those things that is is transcended religion into pop culture. Yeah, and I had never known that at the time. Like you said, the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other um And apparently I looked it up. They really really did not like each other. It wasn't just like over religious stuff, it was over political stuff too, and how those things intertwined.

So they really did not get along. So not only did this guy help somebody in need, he helped an an enemy in need. So I think he does deserve to be to be commemorated for eons over that. Sure, But that's where the name of the law comes from.

Good Samaritan laws are when you stop and help somebody, whether it's your enemy or your friend, um, in an emergency situation, typically you are you should not be penalized if your good intentions cause further harm, right, which seems very much like a no brainer, But it is complicated. The more you read into this stuff, the more you're like, man, there's a lot of nuance to to the variations of

these laws. Yeah, the more you read into it, the more you're like, I am going to end up second guessing myself the next time I'm faced with an emergency situation. Like I hadn't thought about it before, but it's like, yeah, you could totally get sued for helping somebody out, depending on where you are. Yeah, I've never come across this, not even close. What an emergency situation I have I have, Yeah, it was. I was one of many at an accident.

I witnessed the accident. It was like one of those things where you see it happening, you just see it in slow motion and you're just like trying to will it to stop with your body and it doesn't work. It was a man who got tebowed by another car that he didn't see coming. Um and uh. I was one of the people on the scene kind of helping out.

It didn't even occur to me that that that that man could be Like these people hurt me, you know, in in helping I didn't touch the guy or anything like that, but I mean other people were, and um, you know, we called for help and all that, so I think we did it about as good as you can, but nothing about the situation was like, well I need to I need to watch out for my legal exposure here, like something real quick, right where what state in my end?

Let me just check out what's going on as this, like you know, person is bleeding in the street right exactly, But it is nuanced and and after reading some of these examples, I I you know, I get both sides of the coin for sure. So I mean, for example, like there are a couple of things that all of this patchwork of of um of Good Samaritan laws will will have in common basically two as this article states. One is that you can't be compensated for helping out.

And that's a pretty literal reading of the law. I think it's meant to exempt emergency workers, paramedics, doctors, like they they've got their their whole own set of laws governing their actions or inactions, right, so to keep them from giving preferential treatment. I think it's mostly to say this is meant to um. This is this is my interpretation of it, UM. But from what I've seen with Good Samaritan laws, it's it's totally in the eye of

the beholder. But the the that's to say, like, this covers non medical professionals, is who we're talking about, And to to define that, they're saying this is this covers somebody who isn't compensated for their assistance, and that's been transmuted into you can't be compensated for your assistance or else that that leaves you exposed to legal action later.

So when you were sort of kidding around at the beginning, though, but if you saved, Let's say you perform the Heimli at a restaurant and the persons like, man, you just save my life. Here's a here's a finsky. Don't take that five dollar bill and also throw it back in their face and say this is what your life is worth, right exactly? And they say, yeah, I don't really love myself. Well, then then you introduced them to a good analyst and

go about your day. Analysts. What is that? What do I New Yorker in the seventies, You sound like Carrie Green. Nobody says analyst anymore. It was weird. And I think that's what Bob Newhart was, was he? I think I think yeah, he did consider himself as an analyst. That seems like an antiquated term. Though, yes, now it's therapist, right or shrink Yeah yeah, shrink head shrinker, I think is the preferred term. Yeah, I don't know, I would have been in a while. Oh yeah, years. It's good.

It's good. Good to go talk to people, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, but I got it all figured out now. Oh well, that's good. You're cured is what they call that. They cured me. I hope they gave your shrinking award. Do you know what the cure is? What is not really thinking about things too much? Yeah, that's a good, that's good advice. Now, I'm just kidding because people have real problems, but I never have had

the real problems. Yeah yeah, yeah, but I think like even if you don't have like real problems, if you don't have like, you know, some sort of chemical imbalance or diagnosable condition, just about anybody can benefit from time to time to go just talk. It's not even necessarily the counselor helping us. Just being in a situation where you're talking out loud and walking through your problems to

find out what you actually think. It's very helpful. Yeah, I mean I do that at my doctor and my dentist and they're like, dude, we don't want to hear this. Go see see an analyst. You're like, well, I know I'm knocking out two birds of once time. So uh all right, let's go over just a couple of these. I mean, like we said, they're they're different everywhere. But there was one other thing, chuck, Okay, So I said that there were two things in common, and one of

them as you can't be competition. The other one, almost across the board with any any law you're gonna find is that you can't act recklessly, recklessly negligently. Wow, that's tough to get out. You would not hold up in court. I'd be like, give me my five dollars as your lawyer, or maybe that's your defense. You're like your honor, I can't even says and nigluch um. Yeah, those are two

important uh factors for these laws for sure. Yeah, Like that's that's what they all have in common generally, right, that's right. But from there, like if you go to Oklahoma, let's say, you're only um given protection if you are untrained, Like you're just a regular person, right, You're not a a medic let's say, or a doctor, and only if you're giving CPR or trying to stop blood laws. Right,

that's weirdly specific. I've seen that, like, um, that that's that's you could say that that was the third thing that they all have in common, Like, if you're administering CPR or something really basic that any person would want to do or try to do, Um, you're probably protected by a good Samaritan law. Yeah, and defribrillators are covered in a lot of these laws. Since those have really gotten I guess just more common, like the you know, the and I looked into buying one of those. They're

expensive though, Yeah, you looked into buying one. Yeah, just carry around with you, No, not to carry around, but to to have of like not in my car. I got you. Um, so you could yeah, I mean you could help somebody stranding on the side of the road with a jumper cable or get their ticket going. Again. The key I've heard is that when you're when you're setting them up to be defibrillated, you have to shout hot stuff right before you engage it. I thought they

would be like three or four hundred bucks. How much are they? I don't I mean thousands of dollars. I can't remember how many thousands, but it was enough to where I just kind of closed the browser and went and a coold News or something. Well, you know, God bless those malls in America having them every ten feet and keeping us all safe. Sure, I'm sure their insurance helps pay for that. I guess you, cynic Uh. Here's another one in Vermont. You can be fined actually if

you are a bystander and don't do anything. I kind of love this one. Yeah, this is this is what I think the law should be. You know, get a penalty unless you're jumping in there. Yeah, and I mean obviously not putting your own life in jeopardy. Like this is not like if you see somebody getting mugged you have to go wrestle the gun away from the guy,

or jumping into the frozen Potomac River. Sure, but that if you see someone in need and you just keep walking by, you should you should suffer some sort of consequence for that. You should act um that. I mean, this is a this is a very slippery slope right here, because compelling people to act, that's that's a big that's

a big infringement on personal liberty. But at the same time, it's kind of like, come on, you know, if you have to invigorate somebody's humanity with a little bit of law here there, I'm kind of in favor of the UM.

One of my favorite stories that I can ever see on any news program is when you see a group of people coming together to like, and saving people is great too, but like to pull a goat out of a river or something, and there's like the guy with the truck and another guy's like, I got rope, and this lady comes up and it's like I'm a goat whisperer. Uh, and they all like you see like six or eight

strangers come together to to rescue like an animal. Yeah, but they tied the best, they tied the not too tight and accidentally pull the goat in two and then they got susy. That's how it goes. Uh. And then Michigan just forget about it, like it is so convoluted and weird. In Michigan, UM, they protect people who declined to offer assistance, but then they also protect like what is it ski patrol um? What else? There's like three very weirdly specific If you're a block parent, which means

you your house is designated as a safe place. You know, the safe place signs that you see on seven elevens and stuff. I never noticed. It's if you're a little kid and you some some stranger, danger guy in a trench coat is following you, you can run into a thing that has a safe ace and they will protect

you and all the cops and call your parents. In Michigan, I guess you can volunteer as a person whose house is a safe place and you're you're exempted through Good Samaritan laws, right, but you show up and they're like, you're in a house state fan, right, you can't come in uh so potential as sisters, medical personnel block parent volunteers and National Ski Patrol in Michigan, or if you're giving CPR or using an emergency defibrillator. Again, I think

that's pretty well. That's like covered almost across the board. That's like the one area that they just want to make sure that everyone once you know, we would jump in on. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's one of the reasons why they make them so prominent

in in public. I mean, it's not like you have to break glass and there's like a fire hose that you have to know how to get off and turn the thing on, like it's meant for the public to go grab and use, not just for emergency personnel, because using a defibrillator in a in a timely manner has such an impact on on the survival rate from a heart attack that you want people walking around knowing how to use one and ready to use one in in

an emergency situation. Argentina, this is tricky. Yeah, you could uh face jail time for either putting a person in jeopardy or abandoning a person to their fate. It's a real fine line, it is, for sure. Like I think if you yeah, it is a tricky one. I went back and rewad it too, and I'm like, nope, that's it's a tricky one. But I'd like the idea of abandoning to them to their fate if they need help, like somebody on a mountain or something like that, and

just being like sorry, chump and walking along. I like that idea that you you have to do something for them, you're saying, right, You like the idea of just saying, well, it's kind of in God's hands. Now. That's Michigan, Michigan protects that. Right. Should we take a break, Yeah, it's all right. Let's take a break, and we're gonna talk about a very interesting case from California about fifteen years

ago right after this. All right, dude, we're back and we're in California And during the ad break we got in the way back machine and it's two thousand four. Yeah, oh wait, I was still living there. Oh yeah, we're gonna run into you. I've arranged it. I just didn't know you. I'm like, who's that guy? I got in touch with past Chuck and I said, you're gonna want to meet somebody special. You're like, just wait for that beard. You're gonna have one day a right, Like what, I

don't know, I can't grow beard. Yeah, and he'll be like, well at least I got all my teeth. That checks out. Oh the salad days. Um. All right, So this case is really interesting. Uh. Lisa Torti and Alexandra Van Horne were makeup artists that worked together. Um, friendly acquaintances as co workers, but I didn't get the picture that they

were like best buddies or anything. Yeah, we guess the lawsuit implies that they wanted so they went out as a as a group of not just those two, but a bunch of people from work went out for some drinks in the l A area. One of them, Alexandra Van Horn, was headed back and crashed her car pretty bad crash. I think it's like fort into a telephone bowl. Yeah. Yeah,

she's like all the air bags deployed. Uh. Lisa Torti was I saw this, got out of her car, saw smoke, saw liquid and was like, I think this, this car might explode. I need to do something quick, and pulled Alexandra Van Horn from the car, which seems like it had a hand in in paralyzing her. Yeah. I mean that's one thing you want to really be careful doing is moving somebody and you probably don't want to move

them at all. But again, Lisa Torty thought that Alexandra Van Horne's car was about to blow up, so she decided that she was better off trying to get her out of the car, and in court, Van Horne said that Torty yanked her from the car like a rag doll um. Torty said, the smoke, the smoke, and and I mean, looking back on it, it's probably it was Annie Freeze on a hot hot motor. But even still she acted in good faith and so California's Good Samaritan laws, she said, you can't sue me. I was trying to

help you, UM, in an emergency situation. Sorry, the Good Samaritan laws cover this. And by the way, I'm no longer speaking to you. Yeah, probably so. Uh. It went all the way to the California Supreme Court, where they ruled that UM she could sue her for end and co worker because protection at that time, at least for the Good Samaritan law was only for those administering medical care,

not rescue care. Well, so the law said that it was emergency care, and the court interpreted that to me medical care, which was like what in the legislature even said like, no, that's not at all how we meant it. Interesting. Yeah, In fact, they amended the law the next year to say specifically medical or non medical emergency care. But that vagueness got UM got least a tority suit. Yeah, and I was. It's hard to find out sometimes final results of legal cases. We've had that problem, I feel like

a lot over the years. Yeah. The media they have a short attention span. Well, it's that and I think sometimes these things are just still dragging out. Oh really,

you think it's still going on? I think so because I found an article from like three years ago, because I was just trying to find out what happened with the lawsuit, and apparently, um, the woman who pulled the woman being sued TORTI had two different insurance companies, one of which said I'm not getting involved in this, the other of which said, you know what I'm gonna We're gonna agree to defend you against the lawsuit. It was settled for four million dollars, and then the one insurance

company that agreed to help defender sued. The other insurance company said, you got a pony up half of this, and um, the last thing I saw was a district court judge ruled for the defendants insurance company, in other words, the one that said I don't want any part of this. You don't have to pay. But then it said, uh, an appellate panel reversed that decision on Wednesday. And that's literally the last thing I could find. Wow. Wow, that is still dragon on Holy Couch Chuck Research. Yeah, I mean,

I don't, I don't know. There may be something newer out there. But uh, there are probably tricks that legal scholars know that I don't know about researching this stuff. I mean, what does that say, Chuck, that that like an insurance company can just be like where your insurance company, but we're not, we're not touching this one. Well, it was complicated though, because it was it was insurance. It wasn't like just insurance for me walking around if I

want to help someone. It was car insurance. So it was it all came down to whether or not it was considered a use of a car by her opening that door and unbuckling her seatbelt and pulling her out, whether that was using the car. I got very complicated, a little more sense though. It's just you know how

like convoluted that stuff gets though. It does for sure, but that whole like so the whole legality of this whole thing um that that made that whole lesa torty in Alexandro van Horn case, I mean I heard about that when that was going on. Everybody heard about that case because it was like, well, wait a minute, she was trying to help and now she's getting sued and

fire her friends fighting that whole kind of thing. That was two thousand four, and then two years later China started to rise as a great power of anti good samaritanism UM in a lot of different cases, and all of it started in two thousand six in the case of Pang You, who was a man who got off of a bus in China and saw that an older woman had fallen and um broken her hip, and so she had been trying to get on the bus. Paying You was coming off of the bus, and um he

went to go help the lady. Well, the lady later said that he was the one who caused her to fall and sued him, and he was like, I'm just an innocent by stander. He was being a good samaritan helping this lady. Well, the the court said, no, Pang You. We we've decided that um you probably did cause the fall. Otherwise, why else would you have helped the lady. That's era and there's more nuance to it. There were there were a couple of things. Paying You said he was the

first one off the bus. In the court said, well, then you were probably the person to bump into the lady and knock her down, and also why did you give her twenty you on um, which is about thirty bucks if if you didn't feel responsible, and then thirdly, if you were acting heroically, why didn't you go apprehend the person who knocked her down? Why would you go help? So there's a little more to it than just like nobody would possibly help someone out of the goodness of

their hearts, so you're guilty. But that's kind of how I got played up in the popular media, both in China and in the rest of the world, and so paying you became this cautionary tale like if you see somebody hurt in the street, don't help them because they will sue you. And people started to do that, and so people in China until in a few really big cases, sensational cases, did just that. They stopped helping people who clearly needed help, and people were dying as a result. Yeah,

I mean they were. I mean, there's just one case I can't even talk about. Uh, but it was just awful, you know. People not helping people clearly in need became sort of an epidemic in China, uh, until they finally changed some law in what just last year, I think a national Good Samaritan law in two thousand and seventeen that does offer protections. But he's in that one article that uh, it was like it's out of hand in China.

Now in the other way because this this one. Uh. Donald Clark, a law professor who actually specializes in Chinese law at g W said that in China you can like see someone choking in a restaurant and attempt a tracheotomy with a butter knife with no training and be covered and you won't can't be sued, which is I

think everyone would agree that's that's a little too far. Yeah, no matter what you do, you cannot be held liable for acting as a good samaritan, even if it's the most reckless, negligent thing you can imagine, trying something you're

not familiar with at all, you can't be sued. And so some people said, well, not only does this article on this new law um cover it goes too far and covering people protecting people, It doesn't address the problem, which is this culture of distrust that's been kind of fostered by these judges who are ruling in favor of people who are accusing the good Samaritans that have helped them of actually causing their injury and creating this chilling

effect and helping people. I mean people literally elderly people getting hit by cars and being left in the street as people walk around them, and then being hit by another car and killed later on, like a half hour later, Like this was happening, This is going on, and people wouldn't go anywhere near these people because they were afraid that they were going to get sued and and and it was mostly because judges um in in the court system,

we're saying they were siding with people with zero evidence whatsoever, just basically on a suspicion of someone's good intentions. Yeah, I mean that original case when they said, uh, what was the man's name again? Paying you, paying you? They had no evidence whatsoever. It's not like it was on

uh close caption television or anything like that. It was just like you said, the judge going, it seems to me like it's pretty weird that you would have helped had you not been the one that actually not dropped to begin with, right exactly. So, I mean it's good that China has this good Samaritan law, and it's it's a very broad law and it probably needs to be

walked back a little bit. But um, they also need to go after the judges or the I guess kind of the sentiment or thought process of judges that kind of just says, why would you help somebody out if you weren't, if you weren't the one that caused the accident.

Until they do that, and until they go after the the group um pengshi, which are basically crooks people who like lay down in front of cars and pretend they got hit um and then sue the people and are frequently found like they're ruled in favor of their case. Until that is rooted out, that people are still going to be distrustful of helping people who are in need. Yeah,

and that even the van Horn case. I mean, I know she's trying to help, but like you're not supposed to move people, you know, like everyone kind of knows that, and this woman ended up paralyzed and if it was a direct result of that, then I don't know. It's it's a that's a tough one, you know. Well they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That's kind of like where that that lies. Yeah, I

mean I feel bad for both parties for sure. For sure because this the uh twrty it was legitimately trying to help. She wasn't like, well, let me do something that might really hurt my coworker further, She thought that car was going to blow up, you know, so let's get her out of there, right exactly. It wasn't like, you know, she'd always harbored some deep resentment of her, So this is their chance to paralyze her. Yeah, you know, not funny at all for the way that you said it.

So there's another big push in good Samaritan laws in the United States. It's interesting how they're kind of like refined as as things go on, but there's this thread, the sentiment that runs through them that's like, Okay, we need to make sure that people aren't don't hesitate in

helping their fellow, their fellow human in need. Yeah, a lot of these, uh, I mean it's labeled as special interest good Samaritan laws, but these these are great, Like it makes a lot of sense, especially well they all do.

But this one about the food donation um. In the mid ninety nineties, there was a realization that a lot of food was going to waste fourteen billion pounds specifically of food going to landfills when people in America needed that food, and uh, you know you've heard stories about grocery stores or can't be held liabel, so they just

have to throw that stuff away. So they passed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which is to provide some protections in case you donate food and someone gets sick from eating that food, right exactly. So I remember back when when grocery stores did have to throw that away before that law, and it was just so wasteful and so just morally wrong. So they passed that

one good year for passing laws, I guess. Uh. And then there's even newer kind of push of Good Samaritan laws that are protecting college kids who drink too much even though they're under age. They might be worried, oh man, I'm gonna get expelled or kicked out of college if

I call for help. And so apparently that some of them weren't calling for help, and so some universities, I think it's up to thirty two universities in thirty five states now have something called Lifeline or one Good Samaritan law, where if you call for help for yourself or for somebody else who's had too much to drink and it's like a medical emergency. You won't get in trouble for having been drinking under age. But it's laid the groundwork for um uh, like a larger law about opioid abuse

that we really kind of need. That's a good Samaritan law for UM that that protects people who are calling for somebody who's overdosing on heroin. UM where under normal circumstances they might hesitate because they're on heroin themselves and they don't want to get busted for it. Yeah, what's uh. It's called an alex O one and this is uh basically it comes alast like an EpiPen now, and it's

something that cops have in their emergency kits. And just like an EpiPen is something that a civilian can use. You don't have to have medical training. If someone is overdosed on an on heroin or some other kind of opioid, you just inject this thing and that can save their life. And so junkies don't want to call the ambulance or the cops or whatever, just the same as an underage college kid doesn't want to call the cops. So they're

often described as medical amnesty laws. Uh and and it's great, you know, this is exactly and it's making a difference. So was one study in two thousand two at Cornell about the alcohol one and they said there was a rise from toft of um counseling sessions attended by students in two thousand four because students weren't afraid. You know, I'm nineteen years old or whatever and I need help, so they you know, it's it's shown that it's working. And I think the same as is going on with

this uh uh an alexon drug. Right. Yeah, So like the anallexon, it kind of has its own protection where whether you're somebody who's on heroin or not, if you administer that you could be a medical professional. It's like such a new thing um that that they've they've realized they need a specific good Samaritan law for that to cover anybody who's administering um analex oone, like if they do some damage or whatever, they were still trying to help.

But then also if you're like on heroin yourself just calling nine one one, you can have immunity in some states from getting busted for heroin for being on it yourself.

So like Hey, we're gonna save you and you're under arrest, right, which I guess is is still in some states it's still a possibility, and you don't like, you don't want people worrying about whether they're going to get popped themselves and then saying, well, I can't really call for you know, shorty juju over here, which is I guess the heroin users name, you know, so that the heroin user who's overdosing, who would otherwise live, dies because they're the person they're

shot up with, like, is too worried about getting busted themselves. Because the last thing a heroin addict or drug addict might do in the throes of that drug is thinking, let me call a cop or right, you know what, I need a police officer. They might help, right. Uh, they'd say, like as far as advice goes for good samaritans, Um,

this article, you know counsels people to think sensibly. Uh. Most states do have laws to protect people that if you're doing something reasonable to try and help, which all goes back to you know, the split second is kind of tough, but that all goes back to what you're saying, like, reasonable maneuvers to help somebody you know, Yeah, like, I mean, it's not necessarily like, um, like, don't try the tricky otomy,

right right, right? So yeah, so that kind of ties into a second point, like don't try things you're not trained to do, and it just kind of ties into reasonable Like, is is trying to administer CPR a reasonable thing if you come upon somebody who's not breathing, Yes, totally reasonable? Um is it? Is it, you know, unreasonable to try to like get their heart going by by pumping their arms up and down and accidentally dislocating the shoulder. It's probably not going to be protected by a good

Samaritan law. Yeah, but how much can you get suited for for a broken collar bone? Probably a lot, especially if the person is like a ping pong player or a professional illustrator. Yeah, right, exactly. You like ping pong? I love it. We need to do an episode on ping pong. I love ping pong two. I'm surprised we never squared squared off. I am as well, Chuck, Well, we've never been in the same room as a ping

pong table. That's that's that's what I was thinking. I was going to make a camp joke, but you beat me. To the truth. Uh, you got anything else? Oh, yes, I do. There's one thing that came up if you

don't mind talking about it, The sign felt. Do you remember how that final the final episode right right, yeah, which is like the least funny episode of Seinfeld ever, but it had like a weird message when when the gang gets gets put in jail for watching a guy I think it was Jonathan Pinnett get carjacked by somebody with a gun and just sitting there making fun of them while they're videotaping it, right, And that kind of raised the site of this It kind of ties into

good Samaritan laws. A lot of people are like, can you actually is there any place in the country where you can get get in trouble for that kind of thing? And it turns out no, it's that kind of falls into that duty to act law, um where you are in some places like Vermont or I think in California, under some circumstances, you are required to report a crime, but you're not required to actually intervene. And that was like kind of that big point I made earlier at

the beginning of the episode. That's a big distinction, right, and not only are you Um, you know, I'm not required to interview. You're not even required to report the crime during the commission of their the crime. For most duty to act laws, you just can't walk away and pretend you never saw anything. That's the key. Um, that's where you will get prosecuted. So the Seinfeld gang probably would not have gone to jail. And this article that I read quotes a guy who is an attorney in

San Diego. Um named somebody lists me, and I wish I could remember the guy's name. No, not Franz List, who is a great, great composer, but a l I s s. Yeah, his name was Peter List. He's a criminal lawyer from San Diego. Ended up in this article. He basically says, not only should they not have gone to jail, they provided very valuable evidence by recording the entire crime, So let him off the hook. Has there ever been a tougher show to end than sign Field.

I don't know. Yeah, probably not, but they really chose as a very specific, unsatisfying way to do it. What about Sopranos? Everybody hated how that ended? Yeah I didn't. Uh. I loved the Sopranos, but then moved to l a during its run and didn't have TV, so I quit watching it. But I do remember all the hoopla. But SEINFELDT is just one of those I mean that the last episode stunk, but it's just a hard show to end because you can't. It was the most un sentimental

show probably in TV history. Sure, and most shows have a finale that is highly sentimental, and you just you couldn't do that on Seinfeld. It would not have been true to the show. So I don't know what I would have done. It's a tough one. It is a tough one. Maybe it was a perfect ending and it just wasn't a great episode. You could make that case for sure. You know, I'd like to hear maybe if

someone had a better idea. Okay, right, rewrite the Seinfeld finale. Yeah, in a hundreds and sixty characters are less twoot it to us or to forty? Now? What is that? It's weird anyway? Uh? I think that's the end of this episode. We kind of let this peter out to huh yep. Okay, if you want to learn more about good Samaritan laws, that's actually a tip. Go learn your state and or country's Good Samaritan laws, so you know what to do in your ever face with an emergency situation. And since

I said that, it's time for listener mail. Uh, this one's great. I'm just gonna call it great email. Uh. Guys, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, in this glass of wine I'm drinking, I want to reach out and tell you I'll thankful. I am for you. I've been listening to the show for a few years, and your comforting voices, light dad, humor, and interesting topics have become increasingly important to me. My brother passed away almost two years ago at the age of us, an incredible soul and would

have loved your show. I had trouble falling asleep for a while and began playing your podcast when my mind was racing and I needed the distroy action. I fell asleep to many interesting topics for months, and I greatly appreciate your help through the sad times. Last year, I sailed from Seattle to San Diego with my uncle and father. This was the scariest and most exhilarating trip I've ever taken. Ever. We kept a watch system two hours on and four

hours off. During my first two hour night watch alone, I was scared poop las with no land in sight in my life that's secured to the boat. I plugged in my headphones and listened to the Stuff you Should Know Selects Fecal Transplants episode. Midway through my watch, a pot of porpoises started following and playing with the boat. I could only spot their phosphorescence, but I was so darn happy sitting there in the cold and dark listening to you both talk about poop while watching the porpoises

create tubes of glitter in the Pacific. Uh. Can you imagine that? Dude? That's amazing, and our voices didn't ruin it. I know. Uh, this brought me so much comfort in a time I'm of such great discomfort. Now you've heard it before, and at the risk of sounding sappy, your podcast brings comfort and joy to your listeners, and we appreciate you. My brother's birthdays tomorrow and I have been catching up on your latest episodes thinking about the time you help me get through, and I wanted to say

thank you. Thanks for being there for me in a weird way, and thank you for your friendship and your jokes and your comfort. And that is Jane from Seattle. Awesome. Jane Thank you so much for letting us know that story. That's like the deer on the Tracks story that Will Wheaton hadn't stand by me. That's right. That's a pretty cool story. Yeah, it's a good one. If you want to get in touch with us, like Jane did to let us know one of your coolest stories, you can

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