I am an emergency worker, working for the health department. I was
required to attend the scene of a traffic accident, where the injured
person was lying on the ground. When I reached the injured person – I
was notentirely sure whether he had a pulse or not – I moved him into
the ambulance and administered the necessary first aid, namelyCPR
(cardiopulmonary resuscitation). That was after I had ascertained,
inside the ambulance, that no pulse was present.When I reached the
hospital I handed him over to the emergency department, and they put
him in the resuscitation room. One of the doctors asked me: Did he
have a pulse during transportation from the accident scene? And I
replied No, without thinking. I was not sure about that, whether he
had a pulse or not. The time from the accident site to the hospital
was approximately half an hour, during which time I was doing
resuscitation. I was fasting and I was exhausted because of the effort
I expended during the trip to the hospital. Hardly had I said that
word but they removed all the equipment from the injured person and
declared that he was dead. I have been feeling guilty ever since; if I
had said yes, they would have carried on trying to resuscitate him and
that might have been, after Allah, the means of bringing him back to
life. Now I keep going over it in my mind. The accident happened more
than two years ago. What do I haveto do now? Do I have to offer any
expiation? How can I stop thinking about this matter? Please note that
these worries are giving me sleepless nightsand haunt me every time I
give first aid. I hope that you will answer me as soon as possible.
May Allah reward you with good.
Praise be to Allaah.
Firstly:
From asking some doctorsabout your situation, it seems to us that you
are not to blame from a technical point of view; the role of emergency
medical personnel is in the vicinity of the incident, where they are
to do whatever they can to treat those who are injured, and that role
endswhen they hand over the injured persons to the emergency ward
doctor.
The work of the emergency ward doctor begins when the injured person
is handed over to him and he does not havethe right to base serious
decisions on what the emergency worker says. The doctor has to do
whatever he can for the injured person, regardless of what the
emergency worker says, which may be lacking or mistaken.
Removing resuscitation equipment from the patient is not to be based
on the testimony of an emergency worker; ratherit is to be based on
the opinion of a specialist doctor after allowing enough time to hook
the patient up to the resuscitation equipment.
The patient can only have arrived at the hospital alive or dead. If he
was alive upon arrival, the resuscitation equipment should not be
removed except following the decision of three specialistdoctors. If
he was dead onarrival, there is no need for resuscitation equipment in
the first place. These two scenarioshave been discussed in the answer
the question no. 115104 .
Thus it becomes clear thatthe responsibility lies withthe doctor and
not with the ambulance worker.
Based on that, it does not seem that you are to blame for whatever
happened with the patient, so there is no need for anxiety or
distress. We ask Allah to have mercy on the deceased if he was a
Muslim.
You have to do your job well and fear Allah with regard to patients
and accident victims, and to be certain and definitive with your
testimony.
Secondly:
You said that you were fasting and you were exhausted because of
fasting. It should be notedthat if fasting will lead you to fall short
in your work, which may expose accident victims to danger, then you
have to break the fast. This applies if your fast was obligatory. If
it was a naafil fast, then the matter is even more clear.
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-'Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy onhim) said:
Whoever breaks the fast in order to save a person who is drowning or
beingburned in a fire and is onewho has to be saved, thenhe should
break his fast and make it up later on. For example, if you see a
house that is on fire and there are Muslim people inside, and you
cannot fulfil the duty of saving them except by breaking the fast and
drinking water so as to have the strength to save these people, then
it is permissible for you – and is indeed obligatory upon you – in
this case to breakthe fast in order to save them. The same applies
tothese who work as firefighters;
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