Florida Good Samaritan Law: AEDs, Overdoses, and Limits

The Florida Good Samaritan Law, codified at Section 768.13 of the Florida Statutes, protects you from civil lawsuits when you voluntarily step in to help during an emergency, as long as the care is free, offered in good faith, and delivered the way a reasonably prudent person would deliver it in the same situation.¹ That last part trips people up. Florida does not use a gross-negligence threshold for volunteer rescuers; it uses an ordinary-prudence standard, which is a lower bar for a plaintiff to clear.

Who the Law Covers and Where It Applies

The statute covers “any person, including those licensed to practice medicine,” who provides emergency care gratuitously and in good faith. Three conditions have to be met at the same time:

The care is free. You cannot expect or accept compensation. If money is on the table, the statute does not apply.
You act in good faith. Your purpose has to be helping the person, not something else.
The injured person does not object. If a conscious, competent person refuses help and you push forward anyway, you have stepped outside the “without objection” language of the law.

Location matters too. Immunity applies at the scene of an emergency outside a hospital, doctor’s office, or other place with proper medical equipment. A parking lot, a hiking trail, a restaurant, the shoulder of I-95: all covered. A hospital emergency room is not, because clinical settings are governed by a different subsection and by standard malpractice rules.¹

The Standard You Have to Meet

You are immune only when you act “as an ordinary reasonably prudent person would have acted under the same or similar circumstances.”¹ That is ordinary negligence, not gross negligence. Gross negligence requires a conscious disregard for safety. Ordinary negligence is just failing to use reasonable care. A reckless rescuer and an honest-but-unreasonable rescuer could both lose protection.

The circumstances still count. A court weighs the chaos of the scene, the equipment you had, the time you had to think, and what you knew. Someone trained in CPR who performs it correctly on a person who has stopped breathing is on firm ground. Someone with no training who tries to set a broken bone from memory is not, because a reasonably prudent person without medical knowledge would not attempt it.

The protection also extends to how you arrange further help: stabilizing a person and then calling an ambulance or deciding how to move them toward professional care are covered, provided those decisions were reasonable.¹

Healthcare Workers Off Duty Versus On Duty

The statute treats medical professionals differently depending on whether they are volunteering or carrying out a legal duty to treat.

Off-Duty Volunteers

A doctor, nurse, or paramedic who comes across an accident and provides free care falls under the same subsection as any other bystander, and is held to the same ordinary-prudence standard. The difference is practical: “reasonably prudent” means more for a trained emergency physician than for someone with no medical background, because a court will consider the rescuer’s training when deciding what was reasonable.¹

On-Duty Emergency Care

Healthcare providers and hospitals delivering emergency services under federal EMTALA obligations or Florida Sections 395.1041, 395.401, and 401.45 get broader protection. They can be held liable only when their care rises to “reckless disregard for the consequences so as to affect the life or health of another.” The statute defines reckless disregard as conduct the provider knew or should have known created an unreasonable risk of injury “substantially greater than that which is necessary to make the conduct negligent.” Ordinary mistakes during mandated emergency care are protected; only care bordering on indifference triggers liability.²

This heightened protection runs only until the patient is stabilized and able to receive non-emergency treatment. If emergency surgery is needed, the immunity continues through stabilization after that surgery. After that, standard malpractice rules apply.²

Using an AED on a Stranger

AEDs have their own statute, Section 768.1325, called the Cardiac Arrest Survival Act. Anyone who uses or attempts to use an AED on a person experiencing a perceived medical emergency is immune from civil liability for any resulting harm, as long as the victim does not object. The individual or organization that bought the device and made it available is also protected, provided they maintained and tested it properly.³

Modern AEDs talk the user through each step and will not deliver a shock unless the device detects a rhythm that calls for one. The clinical risk of causing harm is low, and Florida’s law takes the legal risk off the table too.

Calling 911 for an Overdose

Florida also has an overdose-specific provision, Section 893.21, that works differently from the civil Good Samaritan Act because it provides criminal immunity. Someone who in good faith calls 911 for a person experiencing a drug or alcohol overdose cannot be arrested, charged, or prosecuted for possession of a controlled substance when the evidence of that possession came to light because they sought help. The same protection applies to the person actually overdosing.⁴

The limits are real. The immunity covers only possession offenses under Chapter 893. It does not shield trafficking, sale, or distribution charges. Evidence from the overdose response can still be used in prosecutions for unrelated crimes.

When Protection Runs Out

A few situations fall outside the statute entirely:

You expected to be paid. Negotiating a fee, or anticipating one, takes you out of the Good Samaritan framework.¹
You acted unreasonably. Dragging a victim out of a safe location, performing CPR on someone who is breathing normally, or attempting a procedure well beyond your training are the kinds of acts a court could find no prudent person would have done.
The person refused help. A conscious, competent individual’s objection ends the protection if you continue.¹
The care happened inside a hospital, clinic, or other facility with proper medical equipment. Those settings are governed by malpractice law, not the volunteer provisions.

Do what you can, stay inside what you actually know how to do, stop if the person tells you to stop, and get professional help on the way as fast as possible. That is what the law is built to protect.

1
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 768.13 – Good Samaritan Act; Immunity From Civil Liability
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 768.13 – Good Samaritan Act; Immunity From Civil Liability
3
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 768.1325 – Cardiac Arrest Survival Act; Immunity From Civil Liability
4
The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 893.21 – Alcohol-Related or Drug-Related Overdoses; Medical Assistance; Immunity From Arrest, Charge, Prosecution, and Penalization