Implied Consent Case Study

Alyssabeth Pinkard

EMT 5th and 6th period

September 11, 2017

1st Six Weeks Writing Assignment

Alex Wubbels, a nurse in Salt Lake City, Utah was wrongfully arrested by a police officer because she refused to draw blood. Wobbles was following hospital protocol and was following the correct guidelines for her job. In the Alex Wubbels video Wubbel refused to draw blood from a patient who was unconscious. The officer wanted his blood drawn because he thought the patient was under the influence of alcohol and may have been the cause of the accident. When Wubbel refused the police officer preceeded to handcuff her because she was succeeding to comply with the police officers. The officer was angry and wanted Wubble to do what he said. When she did what was best for the patient and what she was supposed to do according to law the police officer detained her. The officer obviously did not have a comprehension of

the law and how the hospital guidelines follow the law, and felt that the “law” overruled the hospital rules about consent, the officer also did not mirandize Wubbel.
Implied consent is the granting of permission for health care without a formal agreement between the patient and health care provider.

Having implied consent is important because it provides the health provider with the consent of helping a patient. Implied consent builds trust in the health field, where a patient trusts his health provider. Therefore, implied consent is given by the victim, or in Wubbel’s case the patient. Implied consent is whether or not they want to go to the hospital or have a medical procedure performed on them. In the Alex Wubbel case implied consent applies because the patient who the officer wanted his blood drawn from was not able to give his consent. Alex Wubbel was not only protecting the man involved in an accident, but she was also following the state law of Utah. The Texas state law on implied consent is that it is required that you take a blood or breath test if you are arrested for a DWI. However, in the video Wubbel states, “Patient can‘t consent, he told me repeatedly that he doesn’t have a warrant, and he is not under

arrest”.
(Nurse Gets Arrested For Not Allowing Blood Draw Without a Warrant. (2017, August 31). Retrieved September 20, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yia7qs01z1M) Evidently, the police officer did not understand the law even after Wubbles explained it to him and since he did not get his way he detained Wubbles.
Miranda rights, is a warning police officers give to criminal suspects as they are being handcuffed and taken into custody. The purpose of the Miranda rights are that it is a list of what the person has a right to while being in custody, this began because people did not know their rights. The Miranda rights depends on whether you are the law enforcement officer or the suspect. The Miranda rights apply to the Wubble case because the police officer did not read Wubbel her Miranda rights, therefore she was not properly arrested.
I believe that the officer has very little knowledge of the law which is horrible because his job is to uphold the law. The police officer is incompetent for a public service job and since he didn’t understand he could not cross certain boundaries, other officers too may not understand the law. The Wubbels case should be a sign that police officers jobs are on the verge of not being as great as they once were and should be taught the law once over.