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Pinter v. American Family Mutual Ins. Co.6/30/2000
ning and experience that prepare them to provide assistance under dangerous emergency conditions. Persons entering either profession know that they will be expected to provide aid and protection to others in these hazardous circumstances. In short, both EMTs and firefighters are professional rescuers who are specially trained and employed to conduct rescue operations in dangerous emergencies. See Maltman v. Sauer, 530 P.2d 254, 257 (Wash. 1975)(holding that a professional rescuer may not recover damages for an injury that is "the result of a hazard generally recognized as being within the scope of dangers identified with the particular rescue operation").
. The facts of Pinter's case illustrate this point. Pinter had helped to extricate injured individuals from automobiles on over two hundred occasions. Pinter's injury occurred because he was required to maintain an awkward position for an extended period of time to avoid aggravating the passenger's spinal injuries. Thus, because of his position as a specially trained, experienced EMT, Pinter was asked to put himself in harm's way for the protection of another, more seriously endangered individual. We conclude that EMTs, like firefighters, are specially employed and trained to confront danger.
. Pinter's second effort to distinguish his case from Hass focuses on the fact that Pinter's cause of action is based on negligent driving and not on the negligent starting of a fire.
. We are not persuaded. Like fires, nearly all automobile accidents are the result of negligence. Pinter suggests that the possibility that the negligent drivers violated the motor vehicle code provides a separate basis for recovery. However, "the protection of a safety statute or ordinance is extended only to those whom the enactment was intended to protect." Clark, 75 Wis. 2d at 299. Unlike the municipal housing code provisions at issue in Clark, motor vehicle code provisions are not arguably designed to protect rescuers in the performance of their duties. See Clark, 75 Wis. 2d at 300. We conclude that an automobile collision is equivalent to a fire under the public policy analysis in Hass.
. In sum, we can find no logical reason that the public policy analysis set forth in Hass should not extend to Pinter's cause of action. Instead, we conclude that public policy bars Pinter's recovery. In the same way that allowing a firefighter to recover in Hass would have placed an unreasonable burden on the railroad company that negligently caused the fire, permitting an EMT to recover under the circumstances alleged by Pinter would place an unreasonable burden on drivers who negligently cause collisions. See Hass, 48 Wis. 2d at 327. The injury that Pinter sustained is simply too remote from the initial acts of negligence that caused the collision. Permitting Pinter's action to proceed would enter a field with no sensible or just stopping point.
. Hass would not bar Pinter's cause of action if Pinter sought recovery on the basis of some act or omission other than the initial negligence that necessitated emergency medical assistance. However, Pinter concedes no secondary or aggravating negligence supports recovery. We therefore conclude that public policy bars Pinter's cause of action.
. Pinter argues that extending the public policy limitation in Hass to an EMT claim will result in "a flood of challenges to traditional negligence claims whenever a public employee is injured." (Appellant's Brief at 22.)
. Our holding should have no such effect. We do not broaden the underlying public policy analysis in Hass, which has been the law in Wisconsin for thirty years. We merely hold that when an EMT is called to the s
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