# Medical Bridge / Hot Envelope Note

**Draft note - not medical advice, not legal advice. Adapt by qualified counsel and clinicians.**

Incapacity is not absence of personhood.

A person may be alive but unable to express current will because of coma, dementia, stroke, psychiatric crisis, captivity, coercion, war, loss of communication or other conditions.

The Medical Bridge exists to support the person without replacing the person.

## Hot Envelope

A Hot Envelope may contain incapacity instructions, emergency contacts, medical/legal authority references, continuity package locations and limited support permissions.

It should define:

- activation conditions;
- scope;
- duration;
- who may inspect it;
- who may act;
- who must be notified;
- restoration procedure if capacity returns;
- forbidden actions.

## Safeguards

Recommended safeguards include:

- scope limitation;
- time limitation;
- independent medical or factual confirmations where available;
- legal or fiduciary witness where possible;
- support before substitution;
- right of restoration;
- no automatic transfer of archives or ownership;
- no assumption that inability to sign equals absence of personhood.

## Emergency conditions

Where two physicians, courts or notaries are unavailable, the protocol may allow emergency preservation and temporary support.

Permanent transfer requires stronger legal or class-separated review.

## Core rule

Incapacity must activate support, not replace the person.