Nurse Alex Wubbels arrested for refusing poLice demand to draw blood from unconscious patient

She was an alpine skier in the 1998 and 2002 Olympics under the name Shaffer, and is now a nurse at Salt Lake City’s University Hospital. It may not take bravery to be an elite skier, but it takes grit. And Alex Wubbel had both bravery and true grit.

Det. Jeff Payne wanted to take a blood draw from an unconscious patient, not because he had any probable cause to believe that he was drunk or high, but because he was told to do so. The patient, a reserve police officer who drove a tractor-trailer, had been in a fatal crash and was severely burned.

Payne was told by his watch commander to draw blood. Wubbels refused to let him. Payne had cuffs and a gun. All Wubbels had was law and the grit to tell the cop “no.”

Wubbels says blood cannot be taken from an unconscious patient unless the patient is under arrest, unless there is a warrant allowing the draw or unless the patient consents. The detective acknowledges in the footage that none of those requirements is in place, but he insists that he has the authority to obtain the draw, according to the footage.

Wubbels was conveying hospital policy, but more importantly, the policy aligned with the law.

[Wubbels’ lawyer, Karra] Porter, however, said “implied consent” has not been the law in Utah since 2007, and theU.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the Constitution permits warrantless breath tests in drunken-driving arrests, but not warrantless blood tests. She stressed that the patient was always considered the victim in the case and never was suspected of wrongdoing.

This didn’t work at all for Payne, who failed to see why his order wasn’t more than sufficient for Wubbels to do as he commanded. After all, he’s a cop, and whatever a cop believes he’s entitled to do is “the law” as far as his exercise of force is concerned.

At one point, Payne threatens to take Wubbels to jail if he doesn’t get the sample, and he accuses her of interfering with a criminal case.

“I either go away with blood in vials or body in tow,” Payne says.

https://blog.simplejustice.us/2017/09/01/nurse-alex-wubbels-refused/

Nurse Alex Wubbels arrested for refusing poLice demand to draw blood from unconscious patient

Nurse Alex Wubbels arrested for refusing poLice demand to draw blood from unconscious patient

Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives

Via AnCaps: Law & Enforced Unnatural Order