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Should the Rescued Individual Pay for SARS?

SARS are either funded by the taxpayers or by private donations/the members themselves. If they are funded by taxpayer money, then the rescued parties have already paid for their rescue. If they are funded by donation/members, then the folks doing the volunteering knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

Either way there should be no fine. This of course exclude a hoax or other fradulent situations.
 
Here's one for you guys. Say I live 30 minutes out of town and someone breaks into my house, and let's say fir all intensive purposes that I have no gun or any weapon and two guys start beating the crap out of me and tearing my house apart. I manage to get a call out, the cops come up and save me, my wife and house. They have to drive 30 minutes to get there and use x amount in gas, plus the hours it takes him when all reports are done, should I have to pay for the fees involved?
Or how about if someone runs out onto a road where I am driving, they say their friend has a busted leg and they are in a canyon 3 miles from the road. What is my hourly rate? Let's get real people.
My point is, where does it stop? Sometimes situations are out of our control. We should not be penalized for that. This is why there are budgets for SAR in most counties.
 
no no no and NO!

maybe i'm biased because of the several thousand rescues that happen here over the years, but there seriously needs to start being some goddamn responsibility on the part of the hikers that venture out every day here. Every single goddamn time there is a rescue its ALWAYS for these gray matter lacking stupid people that go UNPREPARED, and exceed their skill levels and venture in extreme terrain where THEY HAVE NO GODDAMN BUSINESS BEING. Damn right they should be billed for their rescue. Nine times outta ten they have GONE PAST marked boundary lines into know dangerous terrain.

the rescues this week involving one dead and 5 seriously injured (three total seperate incidents) was in terrain so dangerous, that NSSR needed to use helicopters, long line techs, and crevasse rescue technicians using ice climbing gear, ropes etc etc etc. The people that were rescued were basic recreational day hikers, NOT ice climbers, NOT mountaineers, NOT big wall winter ice climbers etc. NO GODDAMN BUSINESS being where they went. BILL THEM AND BILL THEM HEAVILY.
 
That's some bullshit, man. Everybody makes mistakes, and financial punishment doesn't do anything but produce a bumper crop of souls with jacked up credit after being unable to pay for the "rescue". This cascades into every aspect of their lives and ours. Look at how the litigous nature of this country (nowadays) has impacted the lives of every citizen.
Say I get rescued, who will make the decision that I need to pay? Will it be one of the uber-gear-tard folks from this board (no offense, but there are a few) who thinks the cleats on my hikers are shaped wrong for my body weight, eye color, and ego? This line of thinking is crazy.
Here's an idea, how about a nationwide crackdown on welfare leeches, government "stimulus" spending, or any number of things (i'm sure in Canada or anywhere else there are reasonable equivalents). The savings can pay for SAR all day long.
 
bushman5....hawaii has the same issue daily....tourists wanting to enjoy the ocean. we now have lifegaurds....why do you think hotels are so expensive? :)

you gotta put SAR on the books and raise some taxes for it.
 
Oregon Knife Guy said:
Here's one for you guys. Say I live 30 minutes out of town and someone breaks into my house, and let's say fir all intensive purposes that I have no gun or any weapon and two guys start beating the crap out of me and tearing my house apart. I manage to get a call out, the cops come up and save me, my wife and house. They have to drive 30 minutes to get there and use x amount in gas, plus the hours it takes him when all reports are done, should I have to pay for the fees involved?
Or how about if someone runs out onto a road where I am driving, they say their friend has a busted leg and they are in a canyon 3 miles from the road. What is my hourly rate? Let's get real people.
My point is, where does it stop? Sometimes situations are out of our control. We should not be penalized for that. This is why there are budgets for SAR in most counties.
Click to expand...


are you aware that the Police are NOT LEGALLY REQUIRED to respond to any calls? that should concern you more than a bill
 
Wilderness survival is what we are here for, IF we get hurt, lose our gear and get lost, we concentrate on staying alive, staying in place if possible and doing everything in our power to stay alive until SAR comes for us or until we can get out on our own.

Perfect gear doesn't mean infallible people.

That's the crux of this matter, SAR will continue being needed, beyond that it's political.
 
No, I'm not nearly as concerned with that(police response). I can take care of myself and am very well acquainted with the laws governing what I can and can not do. My local departments do have policies that establish which calls they are required to respond to, and which can slide. They do this because they don't have the resources to be omnipresent. Perhaps my previously mentioned idea could provide the funding that law enforcement needs to provide that type of service. We will never know just how much money is wasted daily by our leaders.
I'll tell you what, if I received a bill for 30,000 dollars for SAR (let's assume it was for a genuine accident) it would bury me. I would either pay it and lose my house and my wife's car, or not pay it and.....lose my house and my wife's car.
 
Bushman14, no, thankfully bankruptcy law would allow you to keep your primary residence and vehicle.

Laws must be reasonable, or so widely accepted that they are able to be enforced.
 
I have no problem with not charging. Most emergency services are publicly funded from general revenue or paid by user fee. Privately funded services usually have their own missions to fulfill. Folks determined to have made negligent calls, hoaxes, etc can be fined. You'd think this was some revolutionary concept judging by some of the responses. All emergency services around here pretty much work this way.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but these things came to mind when I read the article...

1. It is ridiculously easy and at the same time incredibly difficult to define the bounds of common sense.

Suing McDonald's for getting burned after spilling one's coffee on his or herself. "There was no label indicating it was scalding hot!" Passe, ad nauseum.

2. The manner in which we dump liabilities on others has progressed to the point wherein personal responsibility is nonexistent.

Noncompliant, perpetually lost to follow up despite reasonable attempts (debatable), IV drug abuser + crack smoker, capable of decision making + competent, who's eventually found to have lung cancer - sues the Ambulatory Clinic for the mess.

3. Some areas are, by nature, more litiginous than others.

The U.S.A. in comparison to say, Japan. Same level of Medical Care, etc.
 
On a similar note, should government insurance pay for somebody's Emergency Cardiac Angioplasty after learning that he's been subsisting on a diet of Big Macs for most of his life despite having alternative food sources? Or after learning that he's been a lifelong smoker?

The reasoning may be flawed, but the idea's somewhat similar to having some hiker who requires a full SAR routine because of simply not informing anybody of his route / not preparing the right provisions, etc...

Just some musings. I don't think there's any good way to resolve this, with all our different values.
 
We may differ in our values, but admitting that this is a complex idea, is a good start to having a reasonable conversation. All encompassing statments like:
Every single goddamn time there is a rescue its ALWAYS for these gray matter lacking stupid people that go UNPREPARED
Click to expand...
are all encompassing and do not encourage a positive exchange. Truth is, insane events happen, and mistakes happen, even to the best of us. I'm not suggesting some instances aren't from plain stupidity, but quantifying it seems irrelevant. Aren't we still capable of reason and compassion here? I've read statements that suggest the people in need should just be left to die, their homes taken, or the local, state or federal government should levy huge fines and penalties. Supposing one of our less "capable" and urban relatives were to befall some outdoor tragedy, or one of us (HEAVEN FORBID) makes a mistake some day. Isn't it comforting to know that help is out there, and it doesn't cost you your life or your livelihood?
 
Farmer Brown said:
Not to hijack the thread, but these things came to mind when I read the article...

Suing McDonald's for getting burned after spilling one's coffee on his or herself. "There was no label indicating it was scalding hot!" Passe, ad nauseum.
Click to expand...

Also not to hijack the thread, but that case is the most often cited for lawsuit abuses but that really wasn't the case. Had that woman been drinking freshly poured coffee at my house, she would not have been as severely burned because I don't turn up the heat on my coffee so people don't take advantage of the free refills I promise them. That is why McDonald's lost the case.

As for the rest of this thread, I wonder how many people would really like the country they would get if they had things their way. That goes for the right and left, liberal and conservative, fruit and freak, whatever. I mean, we're slowly getting it down here, prison style. :)
 
Ok how does this sound ... if the rescue costs more than say $10,000 then a court inquiry is undertaken to find if the parties concerned are negligent. Just like a negligent driver, the negligent persons concerned are fined.
Why does that sound like it should already be in force?
 
dartanyon said:
If the rescue costs more than say $10,000 then a court inquiry is undertaken to find if the parties concerned are negligent.
Click to expand...

I think this would be a perfect law. It would protect people who were truly in an accident which was not their fault but also keep people from abusing the system. Hopefully it would encourage more people to gain some training or go with an experienced group.
 
In response to the article, this hiker should not be fined. The F&G Dept. is wrong in their opinion, his hiking itinerary was not aggressive. He is 17, was prepared, doing something people do all the time and had an accident that would have caused problems for anyone. Never mind the fact that he told one of the supervisors at the Pinkham Notch Lodge what he was doing and that supervisor didn't stop him (That's because his itinerary was not aggressive for a prepared 17 year old Eagle Scout.).

On a personal level, I feel that people should be fined for rescue if negligence is the cause and let's not argue over negligence. We all know true negligence when we see it. An easy way to address this is rescue rules. Tell people what they really need to do (and take) before going out. If you don't follow these rules and end up in trouble because of it, you get fined, if you do follow the rules and a true accident occurs, no fine. In my world I would let the rescuers decide who is or isn't negligent.
We really need to educate people properly on wilderness preparedness and the differences between hiking a well known trail (and the gear needed) compared to going off the beaten path and the gear needed.
 
I'm still paying for a wreck I had about 15 years ago. I was ejected from the car, bounced along the highway, gashed, ripped, and skinned. I had no medical insurance at the time, had dozed off and plowed a guardrail, as opposed to someone else causing it, so noone else was paying for it, either.
They charged me almost a grand for two bags of IV fluid, over $3000 for a MRI, and other ridiculous charges. I got bills from doctors who came in and signed my charts while I was sleeping who I'd never seen or heard of.
You're damn right I pay for it, and I'm thankful someone came to get me rather than be left bleeding to death in a highway median.
I take responsibility for my own actions. That's what being an adult is.
 
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