If someone collapses at a table, I think play at the table should be stopped. Not out of respect, but out of practicality - to give the EMTs space to work.

I have been taking some gaming management classes and last semester one of our tests actually contained several variations of "you are the supervisor and someone collapses" situations. These were really out of the blue as nothing in the readings even touched on the issue.

I did well in the class but I really wish I could see some of my classmates answers just out of curiosity.

a) Poker isn't a sport
b) Yes, it's callous as hell. Poker rooms are where (most) people go so they don't have to act like civilized human beings.

I'm not going to tell you to not make a joke/get punny here, but FFS, could you make it mildly funny?

Agree Poker is a game, not a sport.

Don't know where you play ,but I don't see that at all. Only occasionally do I see out of line behavior in a poker room , mostly due to alcohol consumption combined with losing.

As I try to grow out a new business, I've been using poker to afford it/bootstrap (this going from a 10 hour a week player to a 30-50)... Mid limits.

I'm easily annoyed, but in the past two months, I've heard multiple middle aged Asian dudes repeatedly bandy about the words "*****" and "******," some drunk/some sober, like that's ok.

Much of the boorish behavior comes from props, which is astounding to me. Angling, needling, holding cell phones over the table to the point where I can't see the board...

Can't post a pic while posting via phone apparently, but I had a Quasimodo looking guy who got bad beat fling his cards at the bad beater, but they somehow went past my face at eye level at about 40-50 mph just as I looked up from my food.

I'm a low profile, non-antagonistic guy, especially at a poker room where I derive (for now) much of my income, but people can be ********s... And this isn't Commerce/SoCal.

As my user name might point out, I've been a Paramedic a little over a decade. I have responded to numerous calls of similar nature in and out of casinos.

1 Good Samaritan laws protect anyone who is trying to render aid in good faith... Ex: You remove someone from a burning car, but you later find out you paralyzed them because they had a spinal injury. You're not accountable for the injury. Fear of litigation when it comes to assisting another human being should be non existent

2 As a professional responding to this kind of incident, best advice I can give you is shut up, and stay out of the way. Everything is already chaotic, and we need some kind of order. If you're trained to help and want to help, please do so as you're told and instructed by the Paramedic in charge of this patients well being.

3 Please keep playing if you are not hindering or obstructing the area the Paramedic is working in. We are trained to work in all sorts of surroundings and environments and will not be bothered one bit by you continuing to play.

4 As a long time Paramedic I find it to be in bad taste to treat a patient in public, I always elect to move to some place that can be partitioned, some place private, or to my ambulance.

A player had a seizure in the middle of the hand in a room I was in a few years back. The whole game stopped, the few tables around as well. There was a paramedic in the room, who when someone yelled "I THINK HE'S HAVING A SEIZURE!" rushed to help while the guy at the desk called for help. The floor gave him all his money he had put in the pot, and they took him to the hospital. Without the paramedic in the room, he probably would have passed. It took, what seemed like, 10 minutes for more help to arrive. Dealers, players and floor were able to recreate the hand. Didn't even take a rake. They put the money in his shirt pocket before taking him out. About a week later he was back in the room playing. No one at the table objected, even his opponent in the hand.

didn't someone die or collapse while playing ted forrest head up in the 90s after chain smoking and being up two days straight?

Not in CA.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6498405&page=1

I thought Sb 39 Amended the law, I am not in Ca, and not a lawyer. But The case you referenced was the cause for the amendment.


A quick google revealed the following text.

"Issues with the California Good Samaritan Law (Health and Safety Code 1799.102)
Prior to 2009, when Assembly Bill 83 was signed into effect, California’s Good Samaritan law only protected citizens who volunteered to render emergency medical care at the scene of an emergency. That original law spurred AB 83 after a Good Samaritan witnessed a car accident, and pulled a person from the car she believed was going to catch on fire. The person pulled from the car sustained physical injuries during the rescue, which included paralysis. The person who was pulled from the car filed a lawsuit against the rescuer because of the injuries she sustained. The Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the injured plaintiff. The court stated they had no choice but to do so because the Good Samaritan Law only provided for protection for someone who was rendering medical care.2

Since that time, the law has been amended under Assembly Bill 83 to its current language, which includes protection for people who volunteer in both medical and non-medical capacities at the scene of an emergency situation."


Anything I state is merely my opinion and not medical or legal advice.

I've been in card rooms 3 times when someone has died. You should be happy if people on other tables keep playing because the alternative is that they form a circle around the dead guy and watch. Plus, they steal whatever the dead guy has. I mean those chips are history immediately. Even worse. I've been in a cardroom where a guy came there, said he was going to die and wanted to die playing poker, and then did die. First thing the club owner did was leave the casino to go cash the guys check. Meanwhile, everyone took the guys chips while he was on the floor, purple faced, with fizzy breathe leaving his body for the last time.
Another time, I was at the Bike. So many railbirds gathered around, the paramedics couldn't make it thru. By the time they could fight their way past the crowd, the guy died. Next thing I see is them wheeling the dead guy out with a sheet over him.

^ yikes...

Paramedics in California are allowed to declare someone dead?

Local protocol will dictate but to the best of my knowledge yes they can. Usually its more cut and dry situations(read, decapitation) But even without knowing more of that specific situation, it would be a reasonable assumption that they did not resuscitate him because of a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order.