Good Samaritan law

First Aid & CPR Netherlands

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 Article 450 of the Dutch Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht) — failure to render aid to a person in immediate life-threatening danger; classified as an infraction (overtreding).
Scope of protection A person who, witnessing the immediate life-threatening danger in which another finds himself, neglects to render or procure the aid he could reasonably give without danger to himself or others is punishable — but only if the death of the person needing aid ensues. The scope is therefore narrow: immediate danger of death plus the victim's actual death are required. No separate civil-immunity shield for the lay rescuer exists.
Duty to rescue Yes
Penalty for failure to assist Detention (hechtenis) of up to three months or a second-category fine (up to 4,350 euros), and only where the victim's death results.
AED liability protection No
Legal duty to rescue applies

Your protection under the law

In the Netherlands, Article 450 of the Criminal Code (Wetboek van Strafrecht) penalises failure to render aid, but its scope is deliberately narrow: it targets only the witness to an immediate life-threatening danger who neglects the help reasonably possible, and only where the victim's death ensues. The law therefore never punishes the person who tries to help, only the one who stays passive in the gravest cases. There is no separate civil-immunity shield for the lay rescuer, but nothing in this framework penalises the good-faith act.

Duty to rescue

In the Netherlands, the law does impose a duty to help, but reserves it for extreme situations: an immediate danger of death, help you could reasonably have given without risk, and the victim's actual death are all required for the omission to be punishable — by detention of up to three months or a fine. That high threshold should not obscure the essential point: it is precisely in these extreme situations that a few seconds of know-how separate life from death. Training prepares you for the moment when reasonable help becomes vital help.

Why training matters

In the Netherlands, the law punishes silence only when a life has been lost for want of help — which is to say the stakes are never theoretical. In a cardiac arrest, every minute without resuscitation cuts the chance of survival by roughly 10%, and even efficient ambulances rarely arrive before the bystander has had to decide whether to act. By training, you are not ticking a legal box: you become able to hold that life in your hands until help arrives. It may be the most important knowledge you never use — until the day everything depends on it.