Scenario

• As mentioned above, a patient is seriously injured in a car accident caused by a reckless motor cyclist. An ambulance is called to the scene to fetch the patient. The patient is put into the ambulance, which the leaves for the hospital. On the way to the hospital, while speeding through a red light at an intersection, the ambulance collides with a car. The ambulance driver and patient are killed.

–If you apply the ‘direct consequences’ test, who is responsible for the patient’s death?

–Was the conduct of the reckless motor cyclist who caused the original car accident direct cause of the death of the patient?

–Or, was the act of the ambulance driver in driving through a red light a new act that intervened between the motor cyclist’s accident and the death of the patient?

–Was it a ‘risk inherent’ that patients in ambulances may be killed in collisions involving ambulances and third parties?