EMS personnel are generally required to resuscitate and stabilize patients until they are brought safely to a hospital. If I do not have an Advance Directive, I can rely on my family to make my health care decisions when I am unable to make decisions for myself. This is only partly true. Even without such statutes, most doctors and health facilities routinely rely on family involvement in decisionmaking, as long as there are close family members available and there is no disagreement. However, problems can arise because family members may not know what the patient would want in a given situation, or they may disagree about the best course of action.
Disagreement can easily undermine family consent.
A hospital physician or specialist who does not know you well may become the default decisionmaker. In these situations, patients risk having decisions made contrary to their wishes or by persons whom they would not choose. Moreover, family members and persons close to patients experience needless agony in being forced to make life and death decisions without the patient's clear guidance. It is far better to make one's wishes known and to appoint a proxy ahead of time through an Advance Directive. Advance Directives are a legal tool for old people.