BLACK HOLE ALERT: Taking photos of an accident scene or an EMS encounter.

mycrofft

mycrofft

Still crazy but elsewhere
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1. If you are not a member of the press or writing a book, exactly what guarantee (freedom of speech, assembly, bear arms, or ????) protects your unfettered right to take photos at the scene, especially when it includes recognizeable individuals? I know there is no formal right to privacy, but exactly what would keep me from coming over, grabbing your camera, taking out the SIM card, and handing you a tenner to compensate the loss as I snap it in half and hand the camera back otherwise undamaged?

2. Constitutional and legal guarantees aside, is it socially decent to take photos of that sort? How would you like to see yourself or a loved one being treated, arrested, or dead* in the webpages of EMTLIFE r similar website?



*A trick to do that if it's you. :ph34r:
 
Let's get past the legal mincing.

ACLU extract:
"Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs, you may still be charged with trespass".

Many areas have anti-surveillance laws intended to shield law officers from being stalked....:ph34r:

I like the bit under video recording where you can do video but not audio. After that point ACLU (very good folks by the way) says it is their opinion that it is OK.

OK so let's say it IS, strictly speaking, legal to snap photos or take soundless video of anything you can see from a public place (or, they don't mention, YOUR private property). Setting the legal aside, I AM bringing up the ethical and esthetic aspects of it.

A finely divided example: the Zapruder film of President Kennedy being shot. It was taken in a public place of a public event, which went wrong. Perfectly legal, and he even sold the rights to it immediately, but not to a tabloid but to a prestigious magazine (LIFE MAgazine). Without it the investigations into the shooting would have been stymied.

BTW, I can cite many areas where your right to photograph is limited in a public place. Start with courtrooms, go to military installations, sidestep over to restricted public access to unredacted photos of government residences (White House, Naval Observatory).

If we choose to let the strict letter of the law be our only limit of activity (as many corporations and individuals do now) then we see proliferation of laws (and protocols).

I say that, other than for valid documentation, people ought to think twice before recording in still or video, and use the Golden Rule to determine if they ought to post or otherwise reveal it. Can we agree to that?
 
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not quite sure I understand the intent of this thread. is your intent to keep one of us from getting in trouble at work, or is this in reaction to something that was posted on this sight?

with that said, I keep my Nikon D5100 in the ambulance at all times and frequently snap pictures of accident scenes. I mainly use them in lecture PPT for medic school or other such classes that I am teaching. however sometimes they just go into a folder on my server and never get seen again. I have permission from my employer to do this as long as it does not interfere with my job as a paramedic (IE, if the patient is still in the care there is nothing else for me to do) and all patients are unidentifiable, faces obscured, no exposed genitalia, license plates and addresses are un-readable. it is also standard practice to gain the patients permission if they are able to make decisions.
 
I have very few concerns about photos of crews in public. If they can be seen by the public, or at least from a public place they shouldn't be doing anything that they don't want photographed. I do have concerns when it comes to patient privacy. While I would never say anything to a member of the public who was photographing me on scene from a public view point I would be very likely to say something if it was their obvious intend to photograph my patient. I can't imagine a situation in which I would ever take a camera away from someone though. Maybe if it was a very young child and it was very obviously a "creeper"? Even then I think I would just request a police officer to intervene, although there's not much they can do either.
 
mycrofft said:
but exactly what would keep me from coming over, grabbing your camera, taking out the SIM card, and handing you a tenner to compensate the loss as I snap it in half and hand the camera back otherwise undamaged?
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Whatever weapon I have on me and the state law that says I can protect myself from someone trying to rob me, and that's exactly what grabbing someones property from them is.


is it socially decent to take photos of that sort? How would you like to see yourself or a loved one being treated, arrested, or dead* in the webpages of EMTLIFE r similar website?
Click to expand...
If you have a job to do and you're being derelict of your duties? No.

If there is no job to do and it's out in public, what particularly is wrong with it? If you're not on a call and you're driving down the road and see something cool and/or funny, is it wrong? Why?
 
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I like taking photos of MOI and collisions to add to my story to the ED. I, as a rule, do not typically patient's photos unless it's incidental to the above.

I have take photos of interesting pathology, but with permission, and from competent persons.
 
You realize that the article you linked to is satire, right?
 
I am all in favor of pictures of stuff we do as long as no pt info is released. My question is: are these pictures, that were published in the paper, ok as you guys see it? Not taken by me but i am in one of them.

Heaton-house-fire-3.jpg


Link to article with more pics.
http://www.theavtimes.com/2012/09/29/firefighter-injured-working-lancaster-house-fire/
 
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I recall one of the fire buff photo sites had a lot if info about this. To the effect of if you are outside the fire line it is fine to take scene pics. There was also info on how to defend taking pics to uninformed law enforcement or fire officials. When I get to my computer ill dig it up.
 
I take pictures for the local volunteer fire department and do their facebook and website. But I set pretty strict rules on what I take photos of. I always stay away from victims, and rarely every even do mvcs. If I do an mvc all license plates are blurred out. Even on fire scenes I avoid taking pictures that involve anything more than trucks and guys from the department fighting the fire. I also do videos, but those we use for after action critique, and instruction. I would just never feel right taking a photo of an injured person, and the second I get a negative vibe on a fire scene...the camera and the photos disappear.
 
To fill you in, dogs were a-ok! :) they were running around on scene
 
Tigger said:
You realize that the article you linked to is satire, right?
Click to expand...

You do realize that somebody at the ACLU looked at the article and is currently thinking, "Why not?"
 
ffemt8978 said:
You do realize that somebody at the ACLU looked at the article and is currently thinking, "Why not?"
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That's what I was thinking. All their great ideas come satirical posts of some sort.
 
Joe said:
To fill you in, dogs were a-ok! :) they were running around on scene
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Awesome. Thanks, I worry about these things.
 
socalmedic said:
not quite sure I understand the intent of this thread. is your intent to keep one of us from getting in trouble at work, or is this in reaction to something that was posted on this sight?

with that said, I keep my Nikon D5100 in the ambulance at all times and frequently snap pictures of accident scenes. I mainly use them in lecture PPT for medic school or other such classes that I am teaching. however sometimes they just go into a folder on my server and never get seen again. I have permission from my employer to do this as long as it does not interfere with my job as a paramedic (IE, if the patient is still in the care there is nothing else for me to do) and all patients are unidentifiable, faces obscured, no exposed genitalia, license plates and addresses are un-readable. it is also standard practice to gain the patients permission if they are able to make decisions.
Click to expand...

Sounds perfect.
 
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