http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,533641,00.html


CONCORD, N.H. — A Massachusetts teenager who spent three nights alone on Mount Washington in April after he sprained an ankle and veered off marked trails has been fined more than $25,000 for the cost of his rescue.






Ouch.

Negligent, right?

What is amazing is how selective the .gov is applying the label "negligent".


Welfare mom that smokes putting her kid with asthma in the hospital repeatedly?
No prob with that. But let an Eagle scout twist his ankle and make the wrong decision on the trail? $25K fine.

Exactly.

Our gov working "Together".

Let us just remember not to get all political all over this story.

From the story:
"Mason has until August 9 to pay the bill; he could also take the state to court to contest the fine."

For me I hope they do put this before a judge and he strikes it down. It seems like a patently unfair application of the concept of negligence.

It seems in my experiance on this forum, it is only polic

It seems to be deemed political on this forum if you are on the
wrong side of the issue.

Touche

Sounds a little harsh, especially when considering this story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/8155398.stm

I'm not willing to even go that far. I don't want someone who may be in real trouble deciding not to activate a PLB because of concerns with financial consequences. If we start acting like Monday morning quarterback on each rescue, its very easy to find some form of "negligence" involving each victim.

I think PLBs present a great opportunity to save lives. However, they have not yet been widely accepted. New, lower cost PLBs are going to help. But tying a financial liability to it will turn people off and send them to an inferior device that might have some type of rescue insurance attached to it.

Its not perfect, but I look at each rescue as a training opportunity and I've never even thought about punishing someone who may have stupidly gotten themselves into trouble.

Craig.

I think it's a very very fine line myself... to charge, or not.