Answer: both. SARs are typically organized at the county level. If your county SAR is overwhelmed, they involve the SAR from neighboring jurisdictions. They can search across borders easily enough. Mutual assistance etc. SARs work together all the time.

I don't think you can posit enough SAR scenarios that would force SAR to make a value judgment about the lost people being reckless, etc.

Mutual support to another county is a common for my team. Generally support is supplied with in the region (like a 4 county area.)

But there are exceptions such as the lost climber on Mt. Hood late last spring where my team Mountain Rescue Unit lent a hand.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

"From your writing I assume you must be a lawyer"
What do you call one lawyer drowned in the sea?
a good start.
Why won't a shark bite a lawyer?
Professional courtesy
How many lawyers does it take to roof a house?
depends on how thin you slice them.

There is an implicit assumption in the discussion so far that we are talking about victims who got into trouble while recreating. What about folks who need rescuing while working or pursuing some non-recreational end? This isn't hypothetical.

About thirty years ago, a ranger went out on a Sunday afternoon to "check the nature trail" a perfectly good way to conclude a slow winter Sunday afternoon. He hasn't been seen since. How and why he disappeared still isn't resolved, although there are two theories. He may have run into some bad guys consummating a drug deal and been offed by them. He may have skipped to Mexico. He was a controversial employee who had just been reinstated after winning a court battle.

The primary search went on for two weeks, followed by training in the use of Drager breathing devices and the search of several extensive mine workings in the area, and a lot of following up of leads in the months and years thereafter. Eventually his estate was settled and his widow received her proper benefits. BTW, that is one of the practical benefits of a SAR, even if it is nothing more than a body - death is a settled issue and the estate can be probated with no length delays, to say whatever psychological benefits may come to family and friends.

" The point is that any money spent by the government towards rescuing others from actions they voluntarily took for their own personal benefit is a misappropriation."

I am not so sure about that. In every jurisdiction in which I have lived for the last several years, LE agencies, most prominently the county sheriff in the case of rural settings, are explicitly charged with resolving emergency situations and saving lives. Other organizations do the same. Consider the urban firefighter who will enter the burning building to rescue the victim, who may well have started the fire through some careless or negligent act.

My career employer, the National Park Service, puts saving lives as its first priority, usually expressed this way - other than saving lives, suppressing fires is our most important job.

I am comfortable living in, and supporting, through taxes and other means, a society that functions in this manner.

Nope not a lawyer, just a country boy who works for a living.

No one seems to be getting the point I am trying to make here. It must be me, my expression must be inadequate.

I am not saying we shouldn't rescue people. In fact, I am glad we have the facility and means to do so. I think programs like SAR are quite valuable, and the folks who work so hard to help others are friggin' saints in my book.

My concern is that everyone for whom the service has saved their lives made a choice at some point to undertake an activity involving risk. That risk gets transferred to all of us due to tax collection and subsequent funding of various programs and services used. Some folks may be compelled to pay a modicum of the costs associated with their rescue, but the vast majority don't and likely couldn't even if they were told to.

Maybe I am just an idealist, but I grow weary of watching stupid people do stupid things that I have to pay for the fix. It interferes with my survival plans, among other things. Lord knows I do enough stupid things that I have to pay for myself, I don't need to be paying for more than my share.

We need a better mechanism for paying these costs than just pulling money from the general fund. That wasn't what it was intended for, and it gets used to justify a lot of abuse. We use indemnification processes for lots of other things we do. Maybe there's a way to make it work for "rescue insurance" too.

Not political, practical. Pay to play. That's how life should go. We spend money on gear, guides, transport, to go do our thing. If we expect a safety net, then we should be willing to pay for that too, not make everyone else pay for it.

Very few people in this world get to do anything they want without consequence. Poor folk have choices to make, the same as rich folk. If a person chooses to go leave the security of their civilization, whether it is to fish, hunt, work, or just take in the scenery, indemnification should be as much a part of their provisions as a firemaking kit. It should require the same consideration when planning the event.

For those less fortunate, life is an exercise in survival, and I don't recall ever hearing of homeless folks needing rescue out in the boonies. But their plight is a whole different issue.

Benjammin said "No one seems to be getting the point I am trying to make here. It must be me, my expression must be inadequate."

I think most of us understand what you said. We just disagree on the function of society and government. A government is designed to provide some level of common support. You apparently do not include SAR in that. I do. I think this is a reasonable expenditure for the society to make. Since you do not, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Respectfully,

Jerry

+1 - very well put and nicely stated. I am glad we have this forum wherein we can discuss issues like this, and "agree to disagree" in a civil manner.

I think the point was more about holding people accountable for their poor judgment instead of placing the cost on everyone else. I find much merit in that point of view. If people do not think they will have to pay the price or bear the burden for their decisions, they will not learn to make better ones.

On the flip side, implementing any kind of policy or law which could enforce that would be difficult at best. Where is the line drawn between bad judgement and accidents, especially when someone was not aware of all aspects of the situation facing them, and who will make that judgement. There are many well intentioned policies and laws on the books that are useless because they can't be implemented properly.

So we continue to bail people out of their own mistakes, and we also rescue people who are in dire need and not in a bad situation of their own making. In the end, I think we come out on top.

"We need a better mechanism for paying these costs than just pulling money from the general fund."

The SAR group I participated in very often received donations from the rescued. In fact donations more than covered the counties SAR costs and enabled extra money to be spent in education at the 4th grade and adult levels. The people rescued were nearly always otherwise very responsible people in their regular lives, they were just out of their element. Several of the rescued went on to learn and volunteer in the SAR group.

Unless someone is acting criminally, I think we as a people should just cover the cost of rescue.