Good Samaritan law

First Aid & CPR Barbados

The Good Samaritan: compassion and protection

Drawn from the Bible (Luke 10:25-37), the parable of the Good Samaritan tells of a traveller left for dead who is rescued by a stranger that tends to him and sees to his care. Beyond its religious context, it carries a universal message: the moral duty to help others in danger, through compassion and altruism.

Inspired by this principle, many so-called Good Samaritan laws have been enacted around the world to protect those who assist in good faith during an emergency from legal action. The exact scope of that protection, however, varies from one jurisdiction to another: here is what the law applicable to your region provides.

Statute citation

Governing act No dedicated Good Samaritan statute. Barbados is a common-law jurisdiction; liability rests on common-law negligence principles. No general statutory duty to rescue exists.
Scope of protection No dedicated statutory protection for the volunteer rescuer. The intervener is assessed under the common-law reasonable-person standard and is liable only for negligence. No one is required to intervene.
Duty to rescue No
AED liability protection No
No legal duty to rescue

Your protection under the law

In Barbados there is no dedicated Good Samaritan statute for the person who comes to the rescue. Protection rests on the common-law principles of negligence: a rescuer who acts in good faith and reasonably, by the standard of the prudent person, is not exposed simply for having intervened. Only clear negligence could, in theory, give rise to liability.

No duty to act, but every reason to

Barbadian law places no duty on anyone to rescue: coming to someone's aid is a matter of personal choice, not legal compulsion. But a person who chooses to act with good sense and good faith need not fear the harshness of the courts. Helping remains, above all, a matter of will and, more importantly, of skill.

Why training matters

Every minute that passes without CPR cuts a cardiac-arrest victim's odds of survival by roughly 10%: the bystander is the first link, the one on whom everything else depends. In Barbados, where you are often first on the scene well before the ambulance, those opening minutes belong to whoever knows how to act. And with no explicit protective legal framework, mastery of the technique becomes the surest form of reassurance. To get trained is to gain the power to stay calm when everything moves fast, and to give someone a second chance.