12 People Who Were Punished for Being Heroes

Well, we learned something new today. There’s a law against the “wrongful prolongation of life,” and you can definitely be sued for it! Even if you’re a nurse. So the next time one of you nurses sees a woman experiencing cardiac arrest, you better run across the wing to that filing cabinet, rifle through each page to find that she does not in fact have a “Do Not Resuscitate” order, then run back to save her life. Lifeguards be warned as well. We know that it’s your natural inclination to dive right in (heck, you’ve made a career of it) but you’re gonna wanna think about how fast and effective you pull someone from the water, or you might wind up in court.

Over the years, whistleblowing has been a coin flip of good and bad results. Sometimes they’re praised for sounding off against shady, illegal doings, but sometimes the American government gets a tad pissy about being exposed, and could dole out a hefty sentence for alerting the public. We don’t want to deter any reader from jumping in to help or calling out injustice, because we’re 99% sure that most people won’t sue or imprison you for it. Sadly, here are 12 prime examples of selfless, downright heroic acts that did not go unpunished.