Good Samaritan law

First Aid & CPR Peru

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 Criminal Code, Art. 127 — "omisión de auxilio o aviso a la autoridad" (failure to render aid or notify authorities)
Scope of protection Art. 127 punishes anyone who, finding an injured person or a person in serious and imminent danger, fails to give immediate aid they could provide without risk to themselves or others, or fails to notify authorities. There is no separate civil-liability shield for the rescuer.
Duty to rescue Yes
Penalty for failure to assist Imprisonment of not more than 1 year, or 30 to 120 day-fines (Art. 127 CP)
AED liability protection No
Legal duty to rescue applies

Your protection under the law

Peruvian law places rescue on the side of civic duty, not legal risk. Article 127 of the Criminal Code punishes anyone who, finding an injured person or someone in serious and imminent danger, fails to give the immediate aid they could provide without risk to themselves or others, or fails to notify the authorities. Peru has no separate civil-liability shield for the rescuer, but the law's logic is plain: what it sanctions is indifference, never the helping hand.

Duty to rescue

In Peru, the law expects you to act: assisting a person in danger is part of your duties, and shirking it without reason can be punished with up to one year of imprisonment or 30 to 120 day-fines. Far from a threat, this rule states the obvious — in an emergency, inaction has a cost, and preparation removes it. The person who knows how to act answers naturally to what both the law and simple humanity ask of them.

Why training matters

Facing a cardiac arrest, the chances of survival fall by about 10% with every minute that passes without resuscitation. In Peru, where the time it takes help to arrive varies enormously between Lima and the Andean or Amazonian regions, the first link in the chain of survival is almost always an ordinary bystander. Learning CPR and first aid gives you the calm and precision to act in those decisive minutes. A skill learned today may become, tomorrow, the reason someone goes home.