@thumper1 sent me a message asking me to weigh in because I work in Residence Life (and have for several years now,) primarily supervising RAs (and was an RA for two years.) Believe it or not, this is common practice–or at least this has been the policy in every department I’ve worked in, though I think the OP’s student’s perception is a little off.
What I’ve always been told (and told those I supervise) is this:
We ask our RAs not to perform CPR, or in fact any other medical assistance–we tell our staff NEVER EVER to touch a resident, whether it’s a fight or someone throwing up or someone passed out–because we don’t train them to deal with that (from a medical standpoint; there are protocols for nearly every situation. RAs go through intensive training, particularly on crisis management.) So we don’t know if their certification is current, or if they really are properly trained to handle that.
Where the issue comes in is this: if a student staff member is acting in the responsibility of their position and administer CPR or any other type of assistance or even just touching a student, and it makes things worse, the family could then reasonably come after the school for not training them or what have you. So even despite Good Samaritan laws, it’s most likely a liability issue.
So, again, what generally is told to them is this:
If a situation arises wherein a RA feels they need to step in and assist someone, they have a few options.
- Since there are usually multiple people around in these situations, ask someone to do what you would do (put the student in rescue position, talk them through performing CPR, etc.)
- Put same student on the phone with dispatch and let dispatch talk them through it.
- Or, if they feel the situation is really dire, they can step in and perform aid themselves if they are so trained and feel it's necessary. What my experience has generally been is that if they take that step they are doing so as a student, not as an RA, and if any legal action were to ensue the department would not cover them. I can't imagine a department actually firing a student staff member for doing something to help a student in that much need.
If it helps, I’ve been in ResLife for 5 years and never had a situation where someone felt they needed to perform CPR or other life-saving action. This year I was on duty and responded to a situation with a staff member where a student was non-responsive and we knew he was under the influence, but not of what substance. The RA was on the phone with dispatch and the dispatcher asked the RA to tilt the student’s head back to open his airway, so he did. There was no disciplinary action against the RA, even though we always tell them not to touch students.
A few months later, I did a wellness check on a resident whose friends were concerned because no one could get in touch with her–as it turned out, she had attempted suicide via taking large amounts of prescription medication. The dispatcher was talking me through several things; thankfully, she was already on her back and had her head tilted back, and she was breathing, so I didn’t have to touch her (since I had sent the resident’s friend and the RA out of the room when I realized what was happening.)
Something else to consider: most colleges have their own dedicated police or security force, and if it’s a dire situation response time is usually under 60 seconds. So most of the time, by the time you’ve explained to dispatch what is going on, police are already there.
Hopefully this is at least somewhat helpful and helps you all understand where the department is coming from. Even as a professional I’ve been told several times never to touch students; we just aren’t trained in that level of response, and issues that serious are (thankfully) few and far between. This year (my first year as a professional) I’ve had more situations that required medical/emergency response than the other 4 years combined, and it was still probably fewer than ten incidents over the course of the year.
We all joke pretty frequently that we’re going to write a book about “life as a ResLife professional”…maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
ETA: usually in these situations it’s more important for the RA to be talking to the student’s friends so that when police/EMS arrive they can give necessary information, doing crowd control, etc. I can guarantee you they have a protocol about what to do in this situation and there is a low response time enough that not giving CPR would not be harmful.
One more thing to add: We have our RAs call our local Police Department exactly because of the cell phone issue. While it’s technically the “non-emergency” line, it goes straight to dispatch, and I have not noticed a time difference; instead, they dispatch the police officers who are responsible for campus, if they’re available, because they are more familiar with campus, ResLife, what we can and can’t do, etc. In fact, I’ve noticed slower response time with non-campus officers because they often aren’t familiar with campus and so often get lost.