“Depending on why she stopped breathing, there may have been little they could really do to keep her alive, so that would play into the negligence.”
A buddy of mine started off as a volunteer firefighter, and his now the fire chief of a large suburban department. He said it was always hard going on a call for a heart-attack or something if the person had not already been getting CPR by a family member or someone. It was very rare that they would survive if the first person to give them CPR was the responder.
He said often the people were probably already dead, but they would do CPR until the aid car came, put them in the van and medic would continue the treatment to the hospital, and let the doctors declare the patient dead.
One -You never know - maybe you DID get there in time.
Two - let the medical professional make the expert decision.
Three - you don’t have to explain to the grieving family member that their loved one has died.
Several times they would get calls with the person found unresponsive in bed. Stone cold. But they would go through the motions - mainly for the third reason.
I have never performed CPR when it was obvious, ie cold, rigor, liver mortis... I always tell the family the truth, I never lie or sugar coat. One thing they deserve is honesty. It’s hard enough, no point in making it harder. I have had plenty of bad calls. Last year we had lots of young deaths from heroin. If he was witnessed going down, then we did it all all the way to the ER. Children are the worse. Tough to get past the death of a child. Lots of EMTs hang it up after that. Too hard. That is why this cold hearted bitch deserves more than to just lose her job. I know of NO EMTs who would do that. None. Not. A. One. She is a special kind of sicko.